Stevenson Under the Palm Trees - Hardcover

Manguel, Alberto

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1841955884 ISBN 13: 9781841955889

Publisher: Canongate U.S., 2004

Synopsis

Casting Robert Louis Stevenson as his protagonist, Alberto Manguel, author of the international bestseller A History of Reading, spins an intoxicating murder mystery in the South Pacific that echoes Joseph Conrad and A.S. Byatt.

Robert Louis Stevenson has become accustomed to the intense colors and severe humidity of Samoa as well as the uninhibited sensuality of its people. Yet his thoughts turn nostalgically back to his native Edinburgh after a chance encounter with the newly arrived Scots missionary, Mr. Baker. The stark contrast between Stevenson’s restrained past and the fecund sensuality of the island become a pivot point in Stevenson’s consciousness. Everything sours, though, when a young Samoan woman is raped and murdered; someone for whom Stevenson privately pined. The mysterious Mr. Baker presents himself at the center of the investigation as Stevenson suddenly becomes suspicious to his once-admiring islanders. With a playful nod to Stevenson’s lived-life and magnificent fictions, Manguel has weaved together a compelling tale among the palm trees of the South Pacific.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Manguel merges fantasy and reality to create a deceptively simple tale that's both evocative and disturbing."
Observer
Robert Louis Stevenson is enjoying life on the humid, colourful island of Aamoa until rape, murder and the appearance of his doppelganger, Mr Baker, change everything.

With this playful homage to Stevenson's life and work Manguel has woven an intoxicating tale in which dreams mingle with consciousness and repressed desires take shape; where stories become reality and storytellers merge with their own creations.

"Deftly drawing on Stevenson's writings, Manguel moves elegantly through multiple dualities - not merely repression and sensuality, but waking and dreaming, reporting and inventing, attraction and revulsion. Like his eminent precursors, he succeeds in showing how an ostensible crime story can carry profound implications."
The Sunday Times

"Manguel's brief and mesmerizing work is deceptively simple and intriguingly complex, presenting, beneath the gentle and evocative narrative, a tremendous scope of themes and ideas." Zembla Magazine

6.99
Cover design / James Hutcheson

About the Author:

Internationally acclaimed as an essayist and novelist, Alberto Manguel is also a prize-winning translator and has edited ten anthologies. Author of the award-winning A History of Reading, News from a Foreign Country Came and Stevenson Under the Palm Trees, his most recent book is A Reading Diary. Born in Buenos Aires, he has lived in Italy, England, Tahiti and Canada, and now lives in France, where he was named an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters.

About this edition

• Publisher: Canongate U.S.
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1841955884
• ISBN 13: 9781841955889
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 112