The Porcupine

Author(s): Julian Barnes

Fiction

Stoyo Petkanov, the deposed Party leader of a former Soviet satellite country, is on trial. His adversary, the prosecutor general, stands for the new government's ideals and liberal certainties, and is attempting to ensnare Petkanov with the dictator's own totalitarian laws. But Petkanov is not beaten yet. He has been given his chance to fight back and he takes it with a vengeance, to the increasing discomfort and surprise of those around him. In this sharp, powerful novel Julian Barnes examines one for the most dramatic political downfalls of our times - that of Eastern Europe.

General Information

  • : 9780099540144
  • : Random House UK
  • : Random House UK
  • : 0.106
  • : 01 January 2010
  • : books

Other Specifications

  • : Julian Barnes
  • : Paperback
  • : 823.914

More About The Product

'Superbly humane in its moral concerns...an excellent novel' The Times

Julian Barnes is the author of eleven novels, including Metroland, Flaubert's Parrot, Arthur & George and most recently The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. He has also written three books of short stories, Cross Channel, The Lemon Table and Pulse; and three collections of journalism, Letters from London, Something to Declare and The Pedant in the Kitchen. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages. In France he is the only British writer to have won both the Prix Medicis (for Flaubert's Parrot) and the Prix Femina (for Talking it Over). In 2004 he received the Austrian State Prize for European Literature, and in 2011 he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. He lives in London.