The Porcupine

Description

'Superbly humane in its moral concerns...an excellent novel' The Times Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011 Stoyo Petkanov, the deposed Party leader of a former Soviet satellite country, is on trial. His adversary, the prosecutor general, stands for the new government's ideals and liberal certainties, and is attempting to ensare Petkanov with the dictator's own totalitarian laws. But Petkanov is not beaten yet. He has been given his chance to fight back and he takes it with a vengeance, to the increasing discomfort and surprise of those around him.

Julian Barnes is the author of twelve novels, including The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. He has also written three books of short stories, Cross Channel, The Lemon Table and Pulse; four collections of essays; and two books of non-fiction, Nothing to be Frightened Of and the Sunday Times Number One bestseller Levels of Life. He lives in London.

Critics have overlooked his tenderness, underestimated his intelligence, and denied his wisdom... The Porcupine is a superbly accomplished novella * Nick Hornby * A minor masterpiece of political satire: compelling, funny and frightening * Robert Harris * The Porcupine is a new indisputable proof of Mr Barnes's creative power, yet what really astonished me, the Prosecutor, was the amazing precision of the intellectual's view of a socialist dictator, which so accorded with Zhivkov's true character * Prosecutor Zhekov, official prosecutor of the deposed Bulgarian leader Todor Zhivkov * The neatness of the novel's structure is complemented by the rampageous energy of the characters for which it is the cage * Daily Telegraph *