The Emperor's Babe: From the Booker prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other - Softcover

Evaristo, Bernardine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140297812 ISBN 13: 9780140297812

Publisher: Penguin, 2002

Synopsis

FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER

WINNER OF THE NESTA FELLOWSHIP AWARD 2003

'Wildly entertaining, deeply affecting' Ali Smith, author of How to be both and Autumn

A coming-of-age tale to make the muses themselves roar with laughter and weep for pity -- sassy, razor-sharp and transformative -- from the acclaimed author of Mr Loverman

Londinium, AD 211. Zuleika is a modern girl living in an ancient world. She's a back-alley firecracker, a scruffy Nubian babe with tangled hair and bare feet - and she's just been married off a fat old Roman. Life as a teenage bride is no joke but Zeeks is a born survivor. She knows this city like the back of her hand: its slave girls and drag queens, its shining villas and rotting slums. She knows how to get by. Until one day she catches the eye of the most powerful man on earth, the Roman Emperor, and her trouble really starts...

Silver-tongued and merry-eyed, this is a story in song and verse, a joyful mash-up of today and yesterday. Kaleidoscoping distant past and vivid present, The Emperor's Babe asks what it means to be a woman and to survive in this thrilling, brutal, breathless world.

About this title

Review:

"A riotous, racy whirl through Roman Londinium . . . Bernardine Evaristo has spun a captivating tale in verse." "Smart, imaginative, and readable . . . A rich farrago of historical fact and outrageous fancy." ("The New York Times Book Review") "A heroine of ancient times for the modern age... a glittering fiction... brilliant." ("The Times," London) "A riotous, racy whirl through Roman Londinium... Bernardine Evaristo has spun a captivating tale in verse." (Robert Fagles) Smart, imaginative, and readable . . . A rich farrago of historical fact and outrageous fancy. ("The New York Times Book Review") A heroine of ancient times for the modern age... a glittering fiction... brilliant. ("The Times," London) A riotous, racy whirl through Roman Londinium... Bernardine Evaristo has spun a captivating tale in verse. (Robert Fagles) ?Smart, imaginative, and readable . . . A rich farrago of historical fact and outrageous fancy.? ("The New York Times Book Review") A heroine of ancient times for the modern age... a glittering fiction... brilliant.? ("The Times," London) A riotous, racy whirl through Roman Londinium... Bernardine Evaristo has spun a captivating tale in verse.? (Robert Fagles)

From the Publisher:

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR THE EMPEROR'S BABE
'Evaristo's triumph is to transmute politics and history into a glittering fiction whose words leap off the page into life. Anarchic, she calls it, but brilliant would do just as well.' The Times

'The Emperor's Babe makes you feel that you are reading something that has never before been attempted - a sensation to savour...it is a fast exciting read whose occasional bittersweet notes build until it turns, like a ballad, from comedy to tragedy...Brushing off the dust of 1,800 years like a cobweb, Evaristo's golden lads and girls dance in the sun before us, glistening, frail and real. Vivat Zuleika.' Sunday Times

'Evaristo is youthful and daring, with hidden depths of wisdom and hilarity, and she has delivered an entirely new concept for the historical novel, as well as the London novel.' Independent

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0140297812
• ISBN 13: 9780140297812
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272