The Pure Land by Alan Spence
This work talks about new lands, loves lost, histories made. The year is 1858. Thomas Glover is a gutsy eighteen-year-old who grasps the chance of escape to foreign lands and takes a posting as a trader in Japan. Within ten years he amasses a great fortune, learns the ways of the samurai, and, on the other side of the law, brings about the overthrow of the Shogun. Yet beneath Glover's astonishing success lies a man cut to the heart. His love affair with a courtesan - a woman who, unknown to him, would bear him the son for which he had always longed - would form a tragedy so dramatic as to be immortalised in the stories behind Madame Butterfly and Miss Saigon. "The Pure Land" relives in fiction the arc of Glover's true-life rise and fall, and forges a hundred-year saga that culminates in the annihilation of Nagasaki in 1945. The novel gracefully spans the feudal and the atomic ages, East and West, global history and private passion. Alan Spence has produced a modern epic, at once a rattling good adventure, a heart-wrenching love story and a journey of the spirit.
Alan Spence is an award-winning poet and playwright, novelist and short-story writer. His awards include the McVitie Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year. He is based in Edinburgh, where he and his wife run the Sri Chinmoy Meditation Centre. He is Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen, where he is also Artistic Director of the annual Aberdeen WORD Festival.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781841958552 |
| ISBN 10 | 1841958557 |
| Title | The Pure Land |
| Author | Alan Spence |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Canongate Books |
| Year published | 2006-08-24 |
| Number of pages | 432 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |