The Vision Of Elena Silves - Softcover

Shakespeare, Nicholas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099589923 ISBN 13: 9780099589921

Publisher: Vintage, 2013

Synopsis

In the Amazon city of Belen, in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, three old men sit on a bench. They sit in the square every day under the hot sun, remembering the women they loved and the world when it was a better place. One day a woman hurries past their bench whom all have reason to remember - Elena Silves, the girl with eyes as blue as the sky who once saw a vision and has been incarcerated by the Church authorities in a convent high in the Andes ever since. But the old men remember something else. They remember that Elena had been in love at the time with Gabriel, a student revolutionary who became the most wanted man in Belen.

About this title

About the Author:

Nicholas Shakespeare was born in 1957. The son of a diplomat, much of his youth was spent in the Far East and South America. His books have been translated into 20 languages. They include The Vision of Elena Silves (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award), Snowleg, The Dancer Upstairs, Secrets of the Sea, Inheritance and Priscilla. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He currently lives in Oxford.

From Publishers Weekly:

One might have thought that the tradition of a British observer romancing the jungles of South America ended with Graham Greene. But no: the lure of the unwashed still pulls, and cocaine trafficking conveniently provides a contemporary hook. The eponymous Elena Silves, born in 1948 in the city of Belen ("Peru's tropical gateway city and door to the mysterious Amazon") has a vision of the Virgin Mary at age 17 while she is in hiding with Gabriel Rondon Lung--a half-Chinese, half-Portuguese Marxist. Shakespeare, literary editor of London's Daily Telegraph , exploits these two simplistic poles of the South American character--fervent Catholicism and political revolution--so much so that the real fates of his characters (Elena spends 18 years in a convent; Gabriel, the same amount of time in prison and on the run) are virtually passed over. Instead, the two rush to a breathless climax--lovers united at last--but far removed from a history that the author is attracted to, it seems, only as exotic backdrop. At a time when British writing is being hailed for its multicultural sensibilities--Rushdie, Kureishi, Ishiguro--this is a disappointing debut.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0099589923
• ISBN 13: 9780099589921
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272