Death of an Ancient King

Gaudé, Laurent

Fourth Estate Ltd.

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

4th Estate

To avoid an unbearable dilemma, King Tsongor opts to die, but even so his bloody past pursues him with a nightmare quality. Later, the king lies tossing in his shroud, his corpse on a catafalque - he cannot be released from his wakeful death until his son Souba has fulfilled his mission of building seven tombs, one of which will be his father's final resting place.Souba's quest forces him to ponder his father's true identity: he might have been the all-powerful ruler of a vast African empire, yet who was the real man? Tsongor the builder? The explorer? The warrior and army commander? Tsongor the killer? Or Tsongor the father - the man who raised five children? All of them except Souba - sent far from his native city of Massaba, now besieged and in the grip of famine - are busy butchering each other. Tsongor's vast bequest is diminishing daily into the scorched earth of the bloody civil war that has been triggered by his death; an endless war that will see all Tsongor's achievements reduced to ashes.

The Death of King Tsongor

Genre Fiction

Toby Pr

An epic tale of love, lies, and a family’s disgrace in the unforgiving south of Italy. After receiving stunning critical acclaim and France’s most prestigious literary award, the Goncourt Prize, Laurent Gaudé’s The House of Scorta (published in France as Le Soleil des Scorta) has sold more than 400,000 copies. Spanning five generations in a small village in southern Italy, Gaudé’s novel is laced with infamous crimes, forsaken loves, and lifelong secrets. The saga of the Scortas opens in 1870 with Rocco Scorta Mascalzone, the bastard product of a rape and a notorious scoundrel whose legacy the family is forced to confront. While their lineage seems doomed to struggle, the Scortas are blessed with an imposing pride and a relentless faith in their own power. Besides a little tobacco shop they manage to open with their years of savings, their wealth all but lies in their memories and their collective belief in the pursuit of happiness. Gaudé’s omniscient, linear narrative is interwoven with the recollections of the old Carmela as she delivers her last confession to the family priest, exposing the family’s deep-buried secret.

The House of Scorta

Literary

MACADAM/CAGE.

Eldorado

A moving fable about the power of luck, persistence and hope grounded in the often tragic reality of modern-day immigration.  Captain Salvatore Piracci has sailed for twenty years along the Italian Coast, intercepting boats with clandestine North African immigrants who risk everything in hopes of reaching the continent of their dreams: the new Eldorado. But when a woman-haunted by her son's death during an illegal crossing-visits Piracci, she forces him to question the validity of his border-patrolling mission. Meanwhile, two brothers struggle against the odds to leave Africa for Europe, only to be separated when the elder brother's past returns to stop him from reaching the promised land. At a time when debates over immigration and national identity dominate the news headlines in Europe and the U.S., best-selling French author Laurent GaudÃ© offers a unique portrait of the individuals who compromise their illusions and endanger their lives in search of a better existence.

A moving fable about the power of luck, persistence and hope grounded in the often tragic reality of modern-day immigration. 
 Captain Salvatore Piracci has sailed for twenty years along the Italian Coast, intercepting boats with clandestine North African immigrants who risk everything in hopes of reaching the continent of their dreams: the new Eldorado. But when a woman haunted by her son's death during an illegal crossing visits Piracci, she forces him to question the validity of his border-patrolling mission. Meanwhile, two brothers struggle against the odds to leave Africa for Europe, only to be separated when the elder brother's past returns to stop him from reaching the promised land. At a time when debates over immigration and national identity dominate the news headlines in Europe and the U.S., best-selling French author Laurent GaudÃ© offers a unique portrait of the individuals who compromise their illusions and endanger their lives in search of a better existence.

Spanning five generations, the Scorta family saga begins in 1870 with Rocco Scorta Mascalzone, the bastard product of a rape and a notorious scoundrel. Burdened by a legacy of infamous crimes and forsaken loves, its lineage doomed to struggle, the Scortas nevertheless are blessed: with pride and a relentless faith in their own power. Their wealth lies in their memories and their collective belief in the pursuit of happiness. In a narrative both lyrical and linear, Laurent Gaudé interweaves a compelling story with a timeless message and the recollections of old Carmela as she delivers her final confession to the family priest, exposing the Scortas’ most deeply buried secret.

HighBridge Company

A “propulsive” historical novel about the battles―won, lost, and ongoing―that define us, from a winner of the Goncourt Prize (Library Journal, starred review). Assem, a French intelligence officer, is tasked with tracking down a former member of the US Special Forces suspected of drug trafficking during the war in Afghanistan. En route to Beirut, he shares a night with Mariam, an Iraqi archaeologist, who is in a race against time to save ancient artifacts across the Middle East from the destruction wreaked by ISIS. Woven into these two forceful, gripping storylines are meditations on humankind’s bellicose history―Hannibal’s failed march on Rome and the burning of his fleet on the waters of the Mediterranean; Grant’s pursuit of the Confederates into rural Virginia; Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; and Emp. Haile Selassie’s swift retreat from Ethiopia: all turning points in world history, each showing a different facet of how nations and individuals face defeat. This novel is filled with both a philosophical sensibility and a riveting immediacy, seamlessly taking us across the battlefields of our past to reflect on the implications of conflicts being waged today. “Hear Our Defeats is not a conventional historical novel, in the sense of trying to recreate the past imaginatively. Rather, it draws on a series of past episodes, from four discrete epochs―deliberately separated in time and place―to convey a message about time, violence and humanity.”―The Times Literary Supplement

Hear Our Defeats

United States

Europa Editions

Who will tell the tale of Salina, the mother of three sons, the woman with three exiles, the abandoned child with salty tears? She was taken in by Mamambala and raised as her daughter in a clan that only ever saw her as a stranger and which wanted to defeat her. At the twilight of her life, it is her last son who will recount what she has been, while death offers her the rest that life kept from her, so that her tale can become a legend. In a mythical and timeless style, Laurent Gaudé writes the painful geste of a luminous, powerful, and wild heroine, who mistook love for dues and revenge for a reason to live.

Salina: The Three Exiles

Our Europe: Banquet of Nations

History & Criticism

Europa Editions (UK) Ltd

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Books by Gaudé, Laurent

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gaudé, Laurent. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Death of an Ancient King

Death of an Ancient King

The Death of King Tsongor

The House of Scorta

Eldorado

Eldorado

The House of Scorta

Hear Our Defeats

Salina: The Three Exiles

Our Europe: Banquet of Nations