The Rights of Man And Fish

Paul Halas's book, The Rights of Man And Fish, romps through more than 1,000 years of European history as seen through the eyes of a carp. An intelligent, acerbic, multi-lingual carp with a taste for Armagnac, patisserie and progressive politics. Gisella the carp is a one-off, and any resemblance to any other talking fish, either real or imagined, is not only incidental, but utterly impossible. On her journey she meets such historical figures as William the Conqueror, Jane Austen, Alexander Pope and Pablo Picasso, as well as finding herself caught up in Da Vinci's experiments, various European wars, rows and love-affairs, not to mention a variety of alcohol-induced mishaps. Not only does she witness many of the great (and infamous) events of history, she is frequently the cause of them. Which is quite a feat for a fish with a brain the size of a walnut. She also overcomes the ongoing problem of how to talk to humans while remaining partially submerged, and avoiding barbs and hooks, both from anglers and philosophers. Delightful, informative and sceptical - but never cynical - The Rights of Man And Fish nods to Voltaire, Günter Grass and Paul Torday's Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, while maintaining a humour and breadth of vision entirely its own. Join Gisella as she finds out what makes the ideal society based on what she learns from a millennium of human error, intrigue and haute cuisine. Wittily illustrated by Pete Field, this work is a tour de force.