Sacred Country
 First edition (UK) | |
| Author | Rose Tremain |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher |
Sinclair Stevenson (UK) Scribner (US) |
Publication date | 1992 (UK), 1993 (US) |
| Media type | Print, audio & eBook |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | 1-85619-118-4 |
Sacred Country is a novel by English author Rose Tremain, it was published in 1992 by Sinclair Stevenson[1] and won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize[2] and Prix Femina Etranger.[3] It has been compared to Virginia Woolf's Orlando.[4]
Plot introduction
"At the age of six, Mary Ward, the child of a poor farming family in Suffolk, has a revelation: she isn't Mary, she's a boy. So begins Mary's heroic struggle to change gender, while around her others also strive to find a place of safety and fulfilment in a savage and confusing world".[5]
Reception
Positive review extracts on the back cover of the 2002 Vintage edition :
- "Hypnotic...Curiously beautiful and strikingly original" - Spectator
- "Brilliant...A strong, complex, unsentimental novel" - Times Literary Supplement
- "Rose Tremain writes comedy that can break your heart...Funny absorbing and quite original. I've read nothing to touch it this year" - Literary Review
Stephen Dobyns writes for the New York Times, "a book that makes us feel good about the state of fiction in an uncertain market"[6]
Novelist Lynne Freed observes "The writing... is sheer delight. It is skilled, intelligent storytelling at its best".[7]
Film adaptation
Filmmaker Jan Dunn has acquired the film rights to the novel and is adapting the screenplay.[8] Other sources state that Tremain herself is adapting it in three parts for television.[9]
References
- ↑ http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/t/rose-tremain/sacred-country.htm Fantastic Fiction
- ↑ http://www.ed.ac.uk/about/people/tait-black/fiction Previous winners - fiction | James Tait Black Prize winners | People
- ↑ http://www.prix-litteraires.net/prix/121,prix-femina-roman-etranger.html Prix Femina - Roman Etranger
- ↑ http://books.simonandschuster.com/Sacred-Country/Rose-Tremain/9780671886097 Sacred Country | Book by Rose Tremain - Simon & Schuster
- ↑ Back cover of 2002 Vintage edition
- ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/23/nnp/tremain-country.html Muddling Through, Date: April 11, 1993, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
- ↑ The Best Novels of the Nineties by Linda Parent Lesher, page 249, ISBN 0786407425
- ↑ http://unitedagents.co.uk/jan-dunn Jan Dunn | United Agents
- ↑ http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/features/musicsilence/ Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
External links
- Roots on the map Review from The Independent by Natasha Walter