Emperor

Description

Written in the form of memoirs of the various characters, Emperor covers Constantine the Great's march on Rome culminating in the battle at Milvan Bridge (312AD). The book centres on Constantine himself on the eve of his 'miraculous' conversion to Christianity, and his struggles during the campaign - religious, martial and marital. Published to coincide with the author's new book, To the Last City (Chatto, July 2002).

Colin Thubron was born in 1939, and worked in publishing before travelling in North Africa, the Middle East, Russia and China.

Colin Thubron has chosen to present his vividly original concept of Constantine as a mosaic of fragments from letters, written orders, jottings from supposed journals of the emperor and his train and, most revealing of all, extracts from the correspondence of his lovely, tragic, inaccessible wife, Fausta * Sunday Telegraph * It is a stylish, sensitive exploration of complex people in an era of complexities, and creates vividly the climate of an over-ripe civilisation falling into self-questioning -- Mary Renault 'Legionaries and their commanders, frigid empress and frivolous lady-in-waiting, and, above all, the ambitious, domineering, but also self-tormenting and restlessly questioning Constantine - all come vividly to life and persuade the reader that he is their contemporary.' * The Listener *