A vivid tale of suspense and passion that peels away the veneer of modern life. One of five novels the prolific author Julian Rathbone set in Spain
Joseph
Written by Julian Rathbone
- Shortlisted
- The Booker Prize 1979
- Published by Michael Joseph
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Joseph - Julian Rathbone’s highly unreliable early 19th-century narrator - tells the story of his poignant, comic and richly entertaining life
Born into a turbulent Europe of 1790, Joseph has a half-English Catholic priest for a father and an Italian brothel-keeper in place of a mother. He is educated in mathematics, music, and philosophy, but has a gift for narrative and a natural bent for depravity. Seduced by the hectic glamour of battle at the age of eleven and tossed in its wake for the next fifteen years, he survives as courier, pimp, linguist, mercenary, and mascot to tell his tantalisingly unreliable tale.
Julian Rathbone
Julian Rathbone's novel Diamonds Bid was published in 1967. It was the first of many books in a career that spanned more than 40 years
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