Continent
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- £4.99
-
- £4.99
Publisher Description
‘Hard and actual in observation, clearly and richly imagined, remarkably original’ Guardian
A novel in seven stories, Continent is an exploration of the cultures, communities and natural life of an entirely imaginary realm. Built on rich seams of myth and metaphor, this new, seventh continent is strange, atmospheric and yet not wholly a mirage, for its inhabitants are disarmingly familiar, known to us through their loves, their hopes and their struggles to make sense of life.
On its first publication over twenty years ago, this spellbinding book marked the arrival of one of the most inventive minds at work in modern fiction.
‘Fuses folklore and political parable, moral fable and myth, into something rather original and also very modern’ The Times
‘Makes us see our own world more clearly . . . brilliant, provocative and delightful’ New York Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Crace's continent is mainly dry and under-developed, peopled by bureaucrats and country folk whose conflicting values give these loosely connected chapters their essential tension. In "Electricity,'' the wiring of a small village pits superstition and ancient innocence against technology and progress, leaving nothing much changed in the end. The nearly perfect ``In Heat,'' featuring a forest tribe whose women conceive at only one time of year, centers on the effect of their discovery by a biologist doing field workall told in the voice of his daughter, who late in her life learns a truth about her origin. A village scribe in ``Sins and Virtues'' withstands cultural exploitation, remaining true to himself and his art in the face of profit and greed. Crace's imagination is fabulous, conjuring landscapesurban and ruralthat are concrete, credible and mythic at once. It's a topography of the interior, where primitive magical explanations of phenomena are as adequate (and inadequate) as those of progress and technology. Distinguished by unfaltering authority and range of voice, Crace's novel has been awarded the Whitbread and the David Higham prizes in England. This is stunningly powerful, visionary writing.
