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Cargando... The Book of Warpor James Whyle
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"...one is thrown, like [the characters], into the heart of the action, in a state of dread and fascination induced by the dire events, the pristine setting and the perfection of the writing." "The Book of War is a stunning debut novel, well written and... powerfully disturbing." IF YOU READ ONE BOOK THIS WEEK 'The Book of War', by James Whyle (Jacana), R140 A BRILLIANT, unforgettable debut. Steeped in carnage, Whyle's poetic revision of the Eastern Cape's Frontier Wars grips from the outset... Fue inspirado porPremios
The Book of War tells the story of a boy who comes to manhood in a war. An illiterate European child is stranded on the southern tip of Africa. The British and the Xhosa have been spilling each other's blood for eighty years and the young man signs up for the conflict in the hope of steady meals and a few shillings a month.His new commander, The Captain, is hardly more than a boy himself, but he has money and education behind him. His goal is to prove that therevolutionary Minié Rifle is the most effective killing machine available to the British Empire. His instruments are an assortment of convicts, sailors and drunkards culled from the port at the Cape of Good Hope; his adversary, a strategically brilliant Xhosa general with little left to lose.The Captain and the irregulars depart on a journey towards a grotesque dénouement around a copper vat on the slopes of Mount Misery. They move through a landscape prowled by wild beasts, a landscape so savage that the mountains themselves are like "ancient artefacts whose listed purpose is slaughter". As they travel, the distinction between man and animal becomesincreasingly blurred.Although it is based closely on first-hand accounts of the 8th Xhosa War, the book creates the effect of an intense defamiliarisation of a history educated South Africans will believe themselves to be au fait with. It converts the bare facts of times past into something terrible and strange. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)823.92Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 2000-Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio: No hay valoraciones.¿Eres tú?Conviértete en un Autor de LibraryThing. |
“I think some got away.”
“They’ll spread the word,” said the Captain.
A realist nightmare that piles horror upon horror, The Book of War tells the story of a child who comes to manhood in the bloody cauldron of war. With inescapable prophecies locked quietly in the terse lines, it shines an uneasy light on how South Africa started to become what it is...
James Whyle was chosen by JM Coetzee as winner of the 2011 Pen/Studzinski short story award for The Story.
‘It is a very good book... Possibly great.’ – Rian Malan
‘A rare feast – a book whose subject is people slowly making their way through the trudge and mud of their history, but which is also a real page-turner. [It] makes visible, in a way I have not seen before, the Eastern Cape frontier wars.’ – William Kentridge
Available, world wide, from Jacana Media:
http://bit.ly/HNx58X
Digital preview:
http://issuu.com/jacanamedia/docs/the_book_of_war_flipping_preview/1