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The Silver Stag Rhyton

For a novelist, a beautiful or mystifying object preserved from the past can trigger an entire scene. An ancient setting with so many exotic and intriguing elements is particularly fruitful this way. I thought when I started writing fiction that my training as a classicist and years of teaching humanities, with its interplay between cultural artifacts, history and literature, had taught me enough to portray a town near Troy on the eve of the Trojan War. Every time a character reaches for something, wears clothes, eats food, travels or sits down, I had to know what might actually have existed—a… Read More »The Silver Stag Rhyton

Review of Island Beneath the Sea

Isabel Allende’s latest novel, Island Beneath the Sea (April 2010), brings us into the 18th century world of slavery and revolution in Saint Domingue, Cuba and New Orleans. It follows the life of Zarité, a nine year old slave girl sold to Toulouse Valmorain, a French plantation owner in Saint Domingue (later Haiti). Allende’s richly drawn world envelops the reader, but even more compelling are the narrative voices telling this complex, interwoven story. The novel shifts between chapters told by Zarité herself in first person and an omniscient voice, which manages to express an ironic distain for the deficiencies and… Read More »Review of Island Beneath the Sea