Publisher Description
In this ambitious novel, Phillips creates a dazzling kaleidoscope of historical fiction, one that illuminates the dark legacy of Europe’s obsession with race and blood. At the center of The Nature of Blood is a young woman, a Nazi death camp survivor, devastated by the loss of everyone she loves. Her story is interwoven with a cast of characters from both the present and past: her uncle Stephan, Othello the Moorish general, three Jews in fifteenth-century Venice, and an Ethiopian Jew struggling for acceptance in contemporary Israel. Tracing these characters through disparate lands and centuries, Phillips creates an unforgettable group portrait of individuals overwhelmed by the force of European tribalism.
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About Caryl Phillips
Caryl Phillips is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction. His novel A Distant Shore won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and his other awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in New York.
About the Narrators
Julian Elfer is an award-winning, classically trained British actor with extensive stage experience. He studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and the British Academy at Oxford University, where he studied with the likes of Derek Jacobi, Fiona Shaw, and Alan Rickman. Elfer currently resides and acts in New York City.
Kevin Kenerly, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, earned a BA at Olivet College. A longtime member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he has acted in more than twenty seasons, playing dozens of roles.
Elizabeth Knowelden is an Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator who has been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. As an actress, she trained in London at the Webber Douglas Academy where she received a Sir Laurence Olivier Commendation. Her acting credits include theater, musicals, and national tours in the United Kingdom. Also a film actress, she has participated in BAFTA’s Newcomers Program.
Neil Hellegers grew up in New Jersey and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a BA in theater arts and a minor in psychology before getting an MFA in acting from the Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence, Rhode Island. He moved to New York City in 2003 and, since then, has made a career of theatrical performance, percussion, theater education, and audiobook narration. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.
James Patterson is the most popular storyteller of our time. He is the creator of unforgettable characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Jane Effing Smith, and Maximum Ride, and of breathtaking true stories about the Kennedys, John Lennon, and Princess Diana, as well as our military heroes, police officers, and ER nurses. He has coauthored #1 bestselling novels with Bill Clinton and Dolly Parton, told the story of his own life in James Patterson by James Patterson, and received an Edgar Award, nine Emmy Awards, the Literarian Award from the National Book Foundation, and the National Humanities Medal.