The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel

Salman Rushdie

$17.00

Publication Date: January 6th, 2009

Publisher:

Random House Trade Paperbacks

ISBN:

9780679640516

Pages:

368

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From the palazzi of Renaissance Italy to the battlefields of Persia and the shores of Far India, in The Enchantress of Florence we are transported effortlessly through life's great conflicts around destiny, beauty, war, magic, and loyalty. Rushdie's novel is a glorious tale of mesmerizing power and indelible images, an aesthetic fulfillment all its own.

Marie du Vauvre, Vroman's Bookstore, Pasadena, CA

July 2008 Indie Next List

Description

The Enchantress of Florence is the story of a mysterious woman, a great beauty believed to possess the powers of enchantment and sorcery, attempting to command her own destiny in a man’s world. It is the story of two cities at the height of their powers–the hedonistic Mughal capital, in which the brilliant emperor Akbar the Great wrestles daily with questions of belief, desire, and the treachery of his sons, and the equally sensual city of Florence during the High Renaissance, where Niccolò Machiavelli takes a starring role as he learns, the hard way, about the true brutality of power. Profoundly moving and completely absorbing, The Enchantress of Florence is a dazzling book full of wonders by one of the world’s most important living writers.

About the Author

Salman Rushdie is the author of fourteen previous novels, including Midnight’s Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), Shame, The Satanic Verses, The Moor’s Last Sigh, and Quichotte, all of which have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize; a collection of stories, East, West; a memoir, Joseph Anton; a work of reportage, The Jaguar Smile; and three collections of essays, most recently Languages of Truth. His many awards include the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, which he won twice; the PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award; the National Arts Award; the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger; the European Union’s Aristeion Prize for Literature; the Budapest Grand Prize for Literature; and the Italian Premio Grinzane Cavour. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. He is a former president of PEN America. His books have been translated into over forty languages.

Praise for The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel

“A romance of beauty and power from Italy to India . . . so delightful an homage to Renaissance magic and wonder.”
–Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World

“This is ‘history’ jubilantly mixed with postmodernist magic realism.”
–Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Review of Books

“A baroque whirlwind of a narrative . . . [Rushdie helps] us escape from the present into a dreamlike past that ultimately makes us more aware of the dangers and illusions of our everyday lives.”
–Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune

“Brilliant . . . Rushdie’s sumptuous mixture of history and fable is magnificent.”
–Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian (London)

“For Rushdie, as for the artists he writes about, the pen is a magician’s wand. . . . One of his best [novels].”
–John Sutherland, Financial Times

“[A] prodigious fever dream of a book.”
–Lisa Shea, Elle

“Beyond its magical razzle-dazzle lays a work of steely contemporary resonance, rich in slyly metafictional allusions.”
–Hephzibah Anderson, Bloomberg News