The Nature of Blood

Description

An unforgettable novel about loss and persecution, courage and betrayal, and about the terrible pain and necessity of human memory. The Nature of Blood is an unforgettable novel about loss and persecution, about courage and betrayal, and about the terrible pain yet absoulte necessity of human memory. A young Jewish woman growing up in Germany in the middle of the twentieth century and an African general hired by the Doge to command his armies in sixteenth century Venice are bound by personal crisis and momentous social conflict. What emerges is Europe's age-old obsession with race, with sameness and difference, with blood.

Caryl Phillips was born in St Kitts and now lives in London and New York. He has written for television, radio, theatre and cinema and is the author of twelve works of fiction and non-fiction. Crossing the River was shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize and Caryl Phillips has won the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, as well as being named the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 1992 and one of the Best of Young British Writers 1993. A Distant Shore won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 2004 and Dancing in the Dark was shortlisted in 2006.

An astonishing novel: ambitious, pithy, beautifully written and - above all - brave enough to tackle the great, public issues of our century without pity, prurience or maudlin sentiment * Independent * A potent and ambitious fiction, a joy to read, and perhaps its authors best work to date * Scotland on Sunday * Phillips is a cool stylist whose intricately structured work builds with a slow-burning, emotional power, and here is some of his finest writing to date * Guardian * An extraordinarily perceptive and intelligent novel, and a haunting one * New York Times *