Lawrence Norfolk – författare

In the remote village of Buckland, a mob chants of witchcraft. It is 1625, and John and his mother are running for their lives. Taking refuge among the trees of Buccla’s Wood, John’s mother opens her book and begins to tell her son of an ancient Feast kept in secret down the generations. Little does he know that one day, to keep hold of all that he holds most dear, he most realize his mother’s vision – he must serve the Saturnall Feast.

From the bestselling author of Lemprière''s Dictionary, Lawrence Norfolk is back with an astounding novel of seventeeth-century life, love and war; the story of an orphan who becomes the greatest cook of his age.The village of Buckland, 1625. A boy and his mother run for their lives. Behind them a mob chants of witchcraft. Taking refuge among the trees of Buccla''s Wood, the mother opens her book and tells her son of an ancient Feast kept in secret down the generations. But as exquisite dishes rise from the page, the ground beneath them freezes. That winter, the boy''s mother dies. Taken to Buckland Manor, John is put to work in the house''s vast subterranean kitchens where his talent raises him from the scullery to the great house above. A complex dish served to King Charles brings him before Lady Lucretia Fremantle, the headstrong daughter of the house. He must tempt her from her fast. But both encounters will imperil him. As the Civil War begins and the New Order''s fanatical soldiers march, John and Lucretia are thrown together into a passionate struggle for survival. To keep all he holds most dear, John must realise his mother''s vision. He must serve the Saturnall Feast.

In February 1516, a Portugese ship sank with the loss of all hands a mile off the coast of Italy. The Nostra Senora da Adjuda had sailed 14000 miles from the Indian kingdom Gujarat: her mission, to deliver a rhinoceros to the Pope. The Pope's Rhinoceros tells the stories which culminate in this bizarre incident. Ranging from the Baltic Sea to a flyblown colony in India, from a tribe hidden in the African rain forest to atrocities committed in an obscure town in Tuscany, Norfolk's brilliant novel holds up the true history of the rhinoceros as a mirror to the fantasies and obsessions of the Renaissance.

As the seventeenth century opens, a band of venturers forms the Honourable Company of Merchants trading from England to the East Indies. In France, the siege of La Rochelle ends with the massacre of thirty thousand men, women and children. Almost two centuries later, in 1788, John Lemprière published his classical dictionary. This much is fact. Lawrence Norfolk tells us how the first two events led, inescapably, to the third.This amazing tale encompasses the Great Voyages of Discovery and multinational financial conspiracies, and leads a motley cast of scholars and eccentrics, drunk aristocrats and whores, assassins and octogenarian pirates through two centuries and three continents to the brink of French Revolution.John Lemprière reluctantly enters this world as an introverted scholar, obsessed by the myths of antiquity. At the end of this astonishing story he understands that it takes far more than learning to lay the ghosts of the past to rest.

Lourens Norfolk — avtor takih intellektual''nyh bestsellerov, kak "Nosorog dlya Papy Rimskogo", "V oblich''e veprya" i "Pir Dzhona Saturnalla". Ego knigi perevedeny na 34 yazyka, a ih summarnyj tirazh dostig polutora millionov ehkzemplyarov. Itak, vashemu vnimaniyu predlagaetsya dolgozhdannoe pereizdanie ego debyutnogo romana "Slovar'' Lampriera". Perevod publikuetsya v novoj redakcii — a takzhe s predisloviem, napisannym avtorom special''no dlya dannogo izdaniya.V svoem pervom romane, v odnochas''e voznesshem molodogo avtora na vershinu britanskogo literaturnogo Olimpa, Lourens Norfolk soedinyaet, kazalos'' by, nesoedinimoe: osnovanie Ost-Indskoj kompanii v 1600 godu i osadu La-Rosheli dvadcat'' sem'' let spustya, vypusk "Klassicheskogo slovarya antichnosti Lampriera" v kanun Velikoj Francuzskoj revolyucii i Devyatku tajnyh vlastitelej mira… CHereduya ehpizody zhutkie do drozhi i smeshnye do isteriki, Norfolk masterski derzhit chitatelya v napryazhenii ot pervoj stranicy do poslednej — opisyvaet li on paranoidal''nye izyskaniya, dostojnye pera samogo Pinchona, ili zhe bred lyubovnogo ocharovaniya…

Lourens Norfolk — avtor takih intellektual''nyh bestsellerov, kak "Slovar'' Lampriera" (premiya imeni Somerseta Moehma), "V oblich''e veprya" i "Pir Dzhona Saturnalla". Ego knigi perevedeny na 34 yazyka, a ih summarnyj tirazh dostig polutora millionov ehkzemplyarov. Vse romany Norfolka soderzhat zahvatyvayushchuyu detektivnuyu intrigu, dramaticheskuyu istoriyu predatel''stva, vozmezdiya i lyubvi, otgoloski drevnih mifov i original''nuyu interpretaciyu sobytij mirovoj istorii…Itak, vashemu vnimaniyu predlagaetsya ego vtoroj roman-labirint. Norfolk snova izobrazhaet mir na grani ehpohal''noj metamorfozy: pogryazshij v roskoshi i razvlecheniyah papskij Rim kak magnitom tyanet iskatelej priklyuchenij i palomnikov, tajnyh i yavnyh ehmissarov sopredel''nyh i dal''nih derzhav, avantyuristov vsekh mastej. I razdel sfer vliyaniya v Novom Svete zavisit ot togo, kto pervym dostavit Pape L''vu X mificheskogo zverya nosoroga, ispancy ili portugal''cy; ved'' eshche Plinij pisal, chto prirodnym vragom slona yavlyaetsya imenno nosorog, a slon u Papy uzhe est''…