Also by Louis de Bernieres, EVEN BETTER than Corelli's Mandolin, and longer too:
a sweeping historical drama, no kidding, called BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS, having to do with people in a tiny town in Turkey before, during and after WW!, which changed everyone's life forever and ended many. Extremely funny, very moving, full of details of life in a three-religion town where the social ecology was stable till the Great Powers decided to make a complete hell of ordinary people's lives for the next fifty generations.