Purchase

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Books-A-Million

Indie BookShop

Ripped Bodice

Add to Wish List

Also by Barry Unsworth:

Land of Marvels: A Novel, January 2009
Hardcover
Sacred Hunger, November 1993
Trade Size (reprint)

SACRED HUNGER
By: Barry Unsworth

W. W. Norton
November 1993
On Sale: November 1, 1993
629 pages
ISBN: 0393311147
EAN: 9780393311143
Trade Size (reprint)
Add to Wish List

Fiction

Sacred Hunger is a stunning and engrossing exploration of power, domination, and greed. Filled with the "sacred hunger" to expand its empire and its profits, England entered full into the slave trade and spread the trade throughout its colonies. In this Booker Prize-winning work, Barry Unsworth follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son who needs a fortune because he is in love with an upper-class woman; and his nephew who sails on the ship as its doctor because he has lost all he has loved. The voyage meets its demise when disease spreads among the slaves and the captain's drastic response provokes a mutiny. Joining together, the sailors and the slaves set up a secret, utopian society in the wilderness of Florida, only to await the vengeance of the single-minded, young Kemp.

Media Buzz

All Things Considered - March 24, 2008