The Emperor's Babe
- ISBN-10
- 0142001716
- ISBN-13
- 9780142001714
- Category
- Fiction
- Pages
- 272
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2004-02-24
- Publisher
- Penguin Publishing Group
- Author
- Bernardine Evaristo
Description
“Lots of fun . . . like an episode of Sex and the City written by Ovid.”—Kirkus Reviews
Bernardine Evaristo’s tale of forbidden love in bustling third-century London is an intoxicating cocktail of poetry, history, and fiction. Feisty, precocious Zuleika, a restless teenage bride of a rich Roman businessman, craves passion and excitement. She wanders through his villa, bored, or sneaks out to see her old friends, seeking an outlet for her creativity. Then she begins an affair with the emperor, Septimus Severus, remembered to history as the “African Emperor,” and she knows her life will never be the same. Streetwise, seductive, and lyrical, The Emperor’s Babe is a “glittering fiction” with a “heroine of ancient times for the modern age” (The Times).
“The adventures of a sassy, sexy girl about town . . . Funny, engaging, and a daring evocation of the possible genesis of black British history.”—The Independent on Sunday
“Smart, imaginative, and readable . . . A rich farrago of historical fact and outrageous fancy.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Zuleika leads us on a riotous, racy whirl through Roman Londinium—while displaying her lyric gift throughout, and at last her heartbreak to the core, and her own embrace of doom. . . . a captivating tale in verse.”—Robert Fagles
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Blonde Roots
By Bernardine EvaristoIn an alternate world in which Africans enslaved Europeans, Doris, an Englishwoman, is captured and taken to the New World, where the hardships she endures as a slave are offset by dreams of escape and home.
-
Lara
By Bernardine Evaristo"Lara traces the two ancestral strands of a girl called Lara who grows up in London in the sixties and seventies. Her father, Taiwo, is Nigerian and her mother, Ellen,...
-
Soul Tourists: From the Booker prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other
By Bernardine EvaristoFROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER 'Evaristo possesses enough ball-busting originality to create whole novels for each of the historical characters she resurrects . . . [she creates] funky yarns so tantalising you ...
-
Mr. Loverman: A Novel
By Bernardine EvaristoWith an abundance of laugh-out-loud humor and wit, Mr. Loverman explodes cultural myths and shows the extent of what can happen when people fear the consequences of being true to themselves. “Evaristo’s confident control of the language ...
-
A Poetic Journey: "The Emperor’s Babe" in Search of Identity in Virtual Places of Ancient Londinium
By Theresa RassThe question of identity is a recurrent theme in the novel and always seems to hang like a shadow over Zuleika.
-
Manifesto: A radically honest and inspirational memoir from the Booker Prize winning author of Girl, Woman, Other
By Bernardine EvaristoBernardine Evaristo's life story is a manifesto for courage, integrity, optimism, resourcefulness and tenacity. It's a manifesto for anyone who has ever stood on the margins, and anyone who wants to make their mark on history.
-
Fiction Unbound: Bernardine Evaristo
By Sebnem TopluThis book covers all Bernardine Evaristo’s major works: Lara (1997) and Lara (2009), The Emperor’s Babe, Soul Tourists, Blonde Roots and Hello Mum.
-
A Poetic Journey: The Emperor's Babe in Search of Identity in Virtual Places of Ancient Londinium
By Theresa RassThe question of identity is a recurrent theme in the novel and always seems to hang like a shadow over Zuleika.
-
Girl, Woman, Other: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner)
By Bernardine Evaristoslid his hand lightly down her back, sweeping it over her buttocks so slyly nobody else would notice when she tried to move out of his way, he pressed closer to her Bishop Obi was a rich man, a powerful man, his congregation of two ...
-
The Emperor's Blades: Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, Book I
By Brian StaveleyIn The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley, the emperor of Annur is dead, slain by enemies unknown.