Sacred Country
 First edition (UK) | |
| Author | Rose Tremain |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Sinclair-Stevenson (UK) Scribner (US) |
Publication date | 1992 (UK), 1993 (US) |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print, audio & eBook |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | 1-85619-118-4 |
Sacred Country is a novel by English author Rose Tremain. It was published in 1992 by Sinclair-Stevenson[1] and won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize[2] and Prix Femina étranger.[3] It has been compared to Virginia Woolf's Orlando.[4]
Plot introduction
[edit]"At the age of six, Mary Ward, the child of a poor farming family in Suffolk, has a revelation: she isn't Mary, she's a boy. So begins Mary's heroic struggle to change gender, while around her others also strive to find a place of safety and fulfilment in a savage and confusing world".[5]
Reception
[edit]Positive review extracts on the back cover of the 2002 Vintage edition :
- "Hypnotic...Curiously beautiful and strikingly original" - Spectator
- "Brilliant...A strong, complex, unsentimental novel" - Times Literary Supplement
- "Rose Tremain writes comedy that can break your heart...Funny absorbing and quite original. I've read nothing to touch it this year" - Literary Review
Stephen Dobyns writes for the New York Times, "a book that makes us feel good about the state of fiction in an uncertain market"[6]
Novelist Lynn Freed observes "The writing... is sheer delight. It is skilled, intelligent storytelling at its best".[7]
Film adaptation
[edit]Filmmaker Jan Dunn has acquired the film rights to the novel and is adapting the screenplay.[8] Other sources state that Tremain herself is adapting it in three parts for television.[9]
References
[edit]- ^ "Fantastic Fiction". fantasticfiction.com. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
- ^ "James Tait Black Prize winners". Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
- ^ "Prix Femina - Roman Etranger" (in French). Archived from the original on 13 March 2016. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
- ^ Tremain, Rose (June 1995). Sacred Country | Book by Rose Tremain - Simon & Schuster. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780671886097. Archived from the original on 2 December 2020. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
- ^ Back cover of 2002 Vintage edition
- ^ Dobyns, Stephen (11 April 1993). "Muddling Through". New York Times. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
- ^ Parent Lesher, Linda (1 February 2000). The Best Novels of the Nineties. McFarland. p. 249. ISBN 0786407425.
- ^ "Jan Dunn". united agents. Archived from the original on 22 June 2010. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
- ^ "Music and Silence by Rose Tremain". Randomhouse. Archived from the original on 26 February 2005. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
External links
[edit]- Roots on the map Review from The Independent by Natasha Walter
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