Glorious Exploits - Ferdia Lennon

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Auteur(s) : Ferdia Lennon

Editeur : Henry Holt & Company

Langue : Anglais

Parution : 01/03/2024

Format : Moyen, de 350g à 1kg

Nombre de pages : 304

Expédition : 389

Dimensions : 21.6 x 15.0 x 3.2

ISBN : 1250893690

Résumé :

Part Waiting for Godot, part O Brother, Where Art Thou, and completely original, Glorious Exploits is a celebration of the things that bind humanity across battle lines and history, and an ode to the redemptive power of storytelling.

Set in Syracuse, Sicily, during the Peloponnesian War but told in contemporary Irish dialect, Glorious Exploits follows Lampo and Gelon, best friends since childhood. Thrilled to have survived the Athenians' recent invasion and as shocked by the Syracusan victory as everyone else, these unemployed potters are in a mood to celebrate. Of course, they hate the Athenians. Still, that doesn't mean you can't love the theatre of their great playwright Euripides, does it? Realizing that if the Athenians are as doomed as everyone says, this might be their last chance to hear Euripides's poetry, they go down to the quarry where the Athenian prisoners are being held and offer extra rations to any prisoner who can recite his work, a decision that sets into motion an extraordinary series of events.

A novel that asks big questions about war and its aftermath, Glorious Exploits is a story as hopeful and playful as it is tragic.

Biographie:
Ferdia Lennon was born and raised in Dublin. He holds a BA in history and classics from University College Dublin and an MA in prose fiction from the University of East Anglia. Glorious Exploits is his first novel. A Sunday Times bestseller, it was adapted for BBC Radio 4 and was the winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2024. After spending many years in Paris, he now lives in Norwich with his wife and son....

Sommaire:

Winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction
Winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize
Winner of the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award
Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
Shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year by the Irish Book Awards
Shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards Debut Fiction Prize
Shortlisted for the British Book Award for Debut Fiction Book of the Year
Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal of Excellence
Named a Best Book of 2024 by Slate, the Guardian, and the New York Public Library

An utterly original celebration of that which binds humanity across battle lines and history.

On the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city: they've herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot. Looking for a way to pass the time, Lampo and Gelon, two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink, head down into the quarry to feed the Athenians if, and only if, they can manage a few choice lines from their great playwright Euripides. Before long, the two mates hatch a plan to direct a full-blown production of Medea. After all, you can hate the people but love their art. But as opening night approaches, what started as a lark quickly sets in motion a series of extraordinary events, and our wayward heroes begin to realize that staging a play can be as dangerous as fighting a war, with all sorts of risks to life, limb, and friendship.

Told in a contemporary Irish voice and as riotously funny as it is deeply moving, Glorious Exploits is an unforgettable ode to the power of art in a time of war, brotherhood in a time of enmity, and human will throughout the ages.