The Conquered was young Naomi Mitchison's first novel, published in 1923, just five years after the end of the First World War, in 1918. Mitchison chose to write about wars, but about historic ones, Julius Caesar's bloody and gradual conquest of Gaul. Instead of Caesar's serene lists of victories and setbacks, we have the impact of these wars on her Gallic hero Meromic. Profound and traumatic. From being heir to a proud tribe, the Veneti, he becomes by turns a slave, a revenge killer, a wanted man - and a slave again, with a severed right hand, a man looking to end it all. But his life was remediably complicated by his loyalty to and affection for Titus Barrus, the Roman who bought him, and treated him as man, not brute. His conflicts of loyalties are powerfully central. Mitchison was conscious that after the Great War there was still fighting in Ireland. Just as her natural and immediate sympathies were for the Gauls under Vercingetorix fighting the Roman giant, we are shown her own contemporary sympathies were with the Irish against the might of the British Empire. With an Introduction by Isobel Murray.
About the AuthorNaomi Mitchison [1897-1999] was a literary phenomenon. Tireless in her writing, and unafraid and often highly unconventional in her opinions, she left an extraordinary legacy. There are novels for adults and children, based on the classical ancient world, and on the immediately contemporary, stressing at different times her deep interest in Scottish and African societies, and her concerns for the future. She also wrote poetry and plays, memoirs, a war diary, political articles and reviews, and non-fiction - dealing with issues as different as birth control, North Sea Oil and GM crops. The Naomi Mitchison Library publishes her most significant works of fiction and biography, as well as background material and commentary.
Book InformationISBN 9781849210324
Author Naomi MitchisonFormat Paperback
Page Count 338
Imprint Kennedy And BoydPublisher Zeticula Ltd
Series The Naomi Mitchison LibraryWeight(grams) 498g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 19mm