Bücher von Barry Unsworth

A mysterious sculpture of a beautiful and erotic Madonna holds the key to the Fornarini family's secrets. When Raikes, a conservation expert, tries to restore her, he is swept under the statue's spell and swept under the spell of the seductive Chiara Litsov, a member of the Fornarini family now married to a famous sculptor. Raikes finds himself losing all moral grounding as his love for statue and woman intertwine in lust and murder.

"A masterful tale of treachery and duplicity... Spellbinding."--New York Times

From the Booker Prize-winning author of Sacred Hunger, "a vivid, sinuous, profound, and entirely beguiling venture." -Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times. Set in the beautiful landscape and rich history of Umbria, Italy, Booker Prize-winning author Barry Unsworth has written a witty and illuminating work of contemporary manners and morals. The region where Hannibal defeated the Romans is now prey to a different type of invasion: outsiders buying villas with innocent and not so innocent dreams. Among those clustered along one hillside road are the Greens, a retired American couple seeking serenity; the Chapmans, whose dispute over a wall escalates into a feud of operatic proportions; and Fabio and Arturo, a gay couple who, searching for peace and self-sufficiency, find treachery instead. Add to this mix a wily and corrupt British "building expert," and a lawyer who practices subterfuge and plans his client's actions like military strategy, and you have a sharp, entertaining, and satisfyingly bittersweet work.

Kennedy, an opportunist, orchestrates a scam that will have some intended and some thoroughly unintended consequences. For Mitsos, an unresolved family tragedy awakens again, along with his need to avenge his parents' deaths. With utterly convincing characterizations, Barry Unsworth brings us the underbelly of the forge of Western civilization.

Charles Cleasby is unable to see himself separately from his hero, Lord Horatio Nelson. However, in his research he comes upon an incident of horrifying brutality in Nelson's military career that defies all attempts at glorification, and calls Charles Cleasby's world picture into question.

Donald Cuthbertson prided himself on being a model for his students and teachers, but he had lately begun to lose his focus. Degree Day is approaching, along with a birthday party for his wife, Lavinia, who is not going quietly into middle age. Her lavish costume party provides the revelers with a darkly comic resolution to romantic dalliance and political intrigue.

A "powerfully done" (Times Literary Supplement) and tantalizingly semi-autobiographical novel from the author of the Booker Prize-winning Sacred Hunger.

This early work by the Booker Prize-winning author Barry Unsworth chronicles one of his literary obsessions the corruption of innocence and forms it into a compelling contemporary narrative set in the rambling, overgrown grounds of an English estate. There, relying on his rich sister Audrey's beneficence, Simon obsessively digs a secret system of tunnels from which to spy on others. When Josh, a good-looking naif, becomes a gardener at Audrey's home, the two women of the household, Audrey and her distant relative and housekeeper, Marion, find Josh's strength and seeming innocence a potent spell, and his response escalates unacknowledged tensions between them. Meanwhile, Simon, worried about Josh, takes steps to prevent the exposure of his underground labyrinth. The explosive chemistry between the characters will eventually rip apart and rearrange all their lives.

Booker Prize-winning author Barry Unsworth's first novel, published for the first time in the United States.