In 1792, when he was forty-seven, the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya contracted an illness that left him stone deaf. Yet he continued to interact with the world and to create, spending the next thirty-five years in a world emptied of sound but bursting with images of pageantry, cruelty, and pathos. In this brilliant, idiosyncratic book - a kaleidoscope of biography, memoir, history, and meditation - Julia Blackburn vividly imagines the artist's world during this time. She recreates the artist's friendships and love affairs and breathes life into the subjects of his paintings: an...
In 1792, when he was forty-seven, the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya contracted an illness that left him stone deaf. Yet he continued to interact w...
An account of Napoleon's six years on the island of St. Helena describes the island's strange history and recounts the stories, myths, and absurdities.
An account of Napoleon's six years on the island of St. Helena describes the island's strange history and recounts the stories, myths, and absurdities...
In 1913, at the age of 54, Daisy Bates went to live in the deserts of South Australia. Brilliantly reviewed, astonishingly original, this "eloquent and illuminating portrait of an extraordinary woman" (New York Times Book Review) tells a fascinating, true story in the tradition of Isak Dinesen and Barry Lopez.
In 1913, at the age of 54, Daisy Bates went to live in the deserts of South Australia. Brilliantly reviewed, astonishingly original, this "eloquent an...
In the late 19th century, an English missionary arrives on a remote island in the Indian Ocean, intent on wiping our fornication among the natives. Instead he incurs a curse that strikes first his dark-skinned wife, then his son and grandson. But is the curse supernatural--or a white man's guilty fascination with an alien new world? "A hypnotic, cryptic, haunting exploration of the power of memory."--Boston Globe.
In the late 19th century, an English missionary arrives on a remote island in the Indian Ocean, intent on wiping our fornication among the natives. In...
In this fascinatingly imaginative novel, Julia Blackburn has decimated all the rules, creating a magical tale that is part fable, part allegory, part present, part past, and wholly genuine and poetic. The unnamed protagonist has recently lost someone she loved, and her solution is to abandon the present, and the overwhelming pain. The seamless narrative lands her in a medieval seaside village where mermaids wash ashore, devils haunt in packs, a child is born with the head of a fish, and where one day, quite out of nowhere, there emerges a sage and wandering leper. The leper leads a small...
In this fascinatingly imaginative novel, Julia Blackburn has decimated all the rules, creating a magical tale that is part fable, part allegory, part ...
This blend of documentary and fiction describes the author's search for Daisy Bates, an eccentric woman who lived alone in the deserts of South Australia in the early years of the century and whose accounts of her time there make no distinction between fact and fantasy.
This blend of documentary and fiction describes the author's search for Daisy Bates, an eccentric woman who lived alone in the deserts of South Austra...
Wandering through dreams and nightmares from Praslin Islands to Mauritius and then to England, the author unfolds the troubled lives of her forbears, cursed by racial prejudice, sexual inhibition and recurrent mental illness. This first novel is an expurgation of personal feelings, drawing the reader into a landscape like that of a Dali painting.
Wandering through dreams and nightmares from Praslin Islands to Mauritius and then to England, the author unfolds the troubled lives of her forbears, ...
One morning in 1410, two men from an East-Coast fishing village find a mermaid washed up on the sand. This discovery starts a chain of events that leads four of the villagers on a pilgrimage: across the North Sea to Venice, and then along the Mediterranean coast to the Holy Land.
One morning in 1410, two men from an East-Coast fishing village find a mermaid washed up on the sand. This discovery starts a chain of events that lea...
"Goya hatte einen Ort betreten, an dem es kein Vogelgezwitscher gab, keine Musik, keine näherkommenden Schritte und keine bellenden Hunde in der Ferne - die Taubheit sperrte ihn in einen Käfig."
Der Hofmaler des spanischen Königs ist lange fort gewesen. Er hat Angst vor den ersten Worten seiner Frau, denn er wird sie nicht hören können. Eine Krankheit hat ihn vollständig taub gemacht. Im Alter von siebenundvierzig Jahren verlor Francisco José de Goya das Gehör - Julia Blackburn erzählt die stumme Lebenswelt des großen spanischen Malers.
"Goya hatte einen Ort betreten, an dem es kein Vogelgezwitscher gab, keine Musik, keine näherkommenden Schritte und keine bellenden Hunde in der Fern...
