Description
A Sunday Times Book of the Year'A stunning work of historical imagination . . . masterful in its portrayal of love, sex and friendship' - The Observer'Sparrow [is] truly unforgettable' ?_" Daily MailMeet Jacob ?_" aka Sparrow ?_" a boy slave in the Spanish city of New Carthage in the last years of pagan Rome. Raised in a brothel at the edge of a dying empire, a boy of no known origin creates his own identity. He is Sparrow, who sings without reason and can fly from trouble. His world is a kitchen, a herb-scented garden, a loud and dangerous tavern, and the mysterious upstairs where the ?_~wolves?_T ?_" prostitutes and slaves from every corner of the empire ?_" conduct their business. He spends his days listening to stories told by his beloved ?_~mother?_T Euterpe, running errands for her lover the cook, and dodging the blows of their brutal overseer and the machinations of the chief wolf, Melpomene. A hard fate awaits Sparrow, one that involves suffering, murder, mayhem, and the scattering of the women who have been his whole world . . . In Sparrow, James Hynes brings the entirety of the Roman city of Carthago Nova ?_" its markets, temples, taverns of the lowly and mansions of the rich ?_" to vivid, brutal life. 'Hynes renders this hidden world so powerfully and vividly.' ?_" The Guardian
Binding: Hardback
Binding: Hardback