Barry Unsworth’s detective story set in the 14th century, a time of calamity such as few others have been, marked by war, plague and fear of hellfire
The Ruby in Her Navel
Written by Barry Unsworth
- Longlisted
- The Man Booker Prize 2006
- Published by Hamish Hamilton
Buy the book
Barry Unsworth evokes a distant past filled with deception and mystery, whose racial, tribal, and religious tensions are still with us today
Italy in the Middle Ages. Latin and Greek, Arab and Jew live together in precarious harmony in the kingdom of Palermo. Thurstan Beauchamp, a Christian son of a Norman knight, works for Yusuf, a Muslim Arab, in the palace’s central finance office. They manage blackmail, bribes and the gathering of secret information for the king. As the peace and prosperity of the kingdom is threatened, internally and externally, Thurstan is dispatched to uncover the conspiracies brewing against his king.
Barry Unsworth
Barry Unsworth was born in London. He published 17 novels, and is best known for his historical fiction
More about Barry Unsworth Other nominated books by Barry Unsworth
Barry Unsworth’s gripping historical novel about the Atlantic slave trade shared the Booker Prize 1992 with Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient
Barry Unsworth’s complex study of betrayal, paranoia, deception and fear, delivered by Pascali himself – an altogether untrustworthy narrator