Barry Unsworth

Después de sorprendernos con La bailarina y el rubí, Barry Unsworth se atreve esta vez con el mito de Ifigenia. La historia de la hija de Agamenón permite a Unsworth recrear uno de los episodios iniciales de la Guerra de Troya. La trama arranca cuando, retenido en Aulide con toda su flota, el rey de Micenas, decide sacrificar a su hija para obtener asi el favor de los dioses y lograr la victoria en Troya. Ifigenia, el inmortal personaje capaz de fascinar a artistas tan dispares como los pintores John Everett Millais o Frederick Leighton, escritores como Euripides, Boccaccio o Racine y musicos como Christopher Gluck, es objeto de una nueva lectura que pone de manifiesto su radical modernidad.

Ik-verteller Thurstan Beauchamp is in het Sicilië van midden 12e eeuw verantwoordelijk voor het vertier aan het hof van de Normandische koning Rogier II die daar dan aan de macht is. Zijn hart wordt verscheurd tussen Lady Alicia, zijn jeugdliefde - die meer past bij zijn gefrustreerde ambitie om ridder te worden - en zijn erotische passie voor de beeldschone Anatolische buikdanseres (zie titel) Nesrin, een moslimmeisje. Intussen is de controle van Rogier over de multiculturele bevolking van zijn eiland alleen maar schijn. Aan het hof wordt tegen hem geïntrigeerd, wat Thurstan natuurlijk in romantisch-politieke loyaliteitsproblemen brengt. De auteur vertelt met groot vakmanschap een buitengewoon sensueel en psychologisch interessant verhaal tegen een complexe politieke achtergrond, zonder dat dit laatste de minder historisch onderlegde lezer hoeft af te schrikken. Bovendien trekt hij in de pogingen van koning Rogier een vredelievende multiculturele samenleving van christenen en moslims te creëren een (moraliserende?) historische parallel met het heden die te denken geeft. En dat alles in een taal die heel onnadrukkelijk, en zeker niet storend, archaïserend is. Pocket met zeer kleine druk en smalle bindmarge.

A mediados del siglo XII, Palermo se había convertido en crisol de civilizaciones, razas, lenguas y religiones, donde musulmanes, judíos, griegos o normandos vivían en aparente armonía. Thurstan de Beauchamp, es hijo de una caballero normando pero trabaja para un musulman al servicio del rey Rogelio de Sicilia; lleva años enamorado de lady Alicia, pero no podra evitar caer en las redes de la bella bailarina Nesrin. Con el corazon dividido y en intenso debate interior, Thurstan se ve arrastrado a una perversa trama que amenza la vida de su mentor y de su rey en la que solo uno saldra indemne. Tensiones politicas y religiosas, erotismo, espionaje, soberbia recreacion historica, personajes fascinantes y una trama absorbente hacen de esta novela una lectural irresistible.

In the late fourteenth century, a dangerous time beset by war and plague, Nicholas Barber, a young and wayward cleric, stumbles across a group of travelling players and compounds his sins by joining them. Yet the town where they perform reveals another drama: a young woman is to be hanged for the murder of a twelve-year-old boy. What better way to increase their taking than to make a new play, to enact the murder of Thomas Wells? But as the actor rehearse, they discover that the truth about the boy's death has yet to be revealed...

O cenálio é Áulide, o tempo é o ano 1260 a.C. Os ventos desfavoráveis impedem a armada da força expedicionária grega (na realidade uma mistura de tribos hostis frouxamente unidas sob o comando de Agamemnon) de se lançar ao mar para ir conquistar Troia. O pretexto e a vingança pelo rapto de Helena, mas o que Agamemnon e os chefes tribais como Aquiles e Ulisses de facto querem so os fabulosos tesouros de Troia. Os augurios explicam os ventos contrarios pela ira de Zeus e profetizam que somente o sacrificio da filha de Agamemnon, Ifigenia, os podera inverter. Ulisses e o principal manipulador, explorando cinicamente a profecia para servir os seus objectivos. E Ifigenia, atraida a Aulide por promessas falsas, revela maior coragem moral do que o rei, os seus inimigos ou os cortesos que apenas procuram vantagens pessoais. O romance de Barry Unsworth, em que as cadencias classicas se combinam com o humor e uma giria contemporanea, retoma a historia antiga para mostrar como um homem ambicioso e sedento de poder pode distorcer a verdade e criar a iluso de uma guerra justa. E uma reescrita audaciosa do mito, com uma aguda ressonancia contemporanea.

Troy meant one thing only to the men gathered here, as it did to their commanders. Troy was a dream of wealth; and if the wind continued the dream would crumble.As the harsh wind holds the Greek fleet trapped in the straits at Aulis, frustration and political impotence turn into a desire for the blood of a young and innocent woman blood that will appease the gods and allow the troops to set sail. And when Iphigeneia, Agamemnons beloved daughter, is brought to the coast under false pretences, and when a knife is fashioned out of the finest and most precious of materials, it looks as if the ships will soon be on their way. But can a father really go to these lengths to secure political victory, and can a daughter willingly give up her life for the worldly ambitions of her father?Throwing off the heroic values we expect of them, Barry Unsworths mythic characters embrace the political ethos of the twenty-first century and speak in words we recognize as our own. The blowhard Odysseus warns the men to not marginalize Agamemnon and to strike while the bronze is hot. High-sounding principles clash with private motives, and dark comedy ensues. Here is a novel that stands the world on its head.

As the child of an absent mother and a disapproving father, Charles Cleasby found comfort in solitary games of chess. Many years later, in the house where he grew up and now lives alone, he re-enacts the naval battles of his hero Horatio Nelson, moving model ships as carefully as he once did chess pieces.Having long been convinced of a link between this great mans life and mine, Charles, surrounded by his collection of Nelson memorabilia, begins work on his biography of the Admiral and is unsettled to find that Nelson may not be the perfect leader hes always imagined. To doubt his heros integrity feels like a terrible betrayal, but if Nelson is not the man Charles thought he was, what does that mean for him?

WINNER OF THE 1992 BOOKER PRIZEGripping . . . SACRED HUNGER covers a period between 1752 and 1765 . . . it concerns the entangled and conflicted fortunes of two cousins: Erasmus Kemp, the son of a Lancashire merchant, and Matthew Paris, a scholar and surgeon just released from prison for "denying Holy Writ" . . . the Liverpool Merchant is the vessel on which the whole of the novel hinges, and it carries the reader deep into the history of mans iniquitous greed . . . AS REGARDS ITS DRAMATIC BREADTH AND ENERGY, NO RECENT DOMESTIC NOVEL HAS COME WITHIN A MILE OF IT - Anthony Quinn in the Independent