Sacred Country

Sacred Country is a novel by English author Rose Tremain. It was published in 1992 by Sinclair-Stevenson[1] and won both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize[2] and Prix Femina étranger.[3] It has been compared to Virginia Woolf's Orlando.[4]

Sacred Country
First edition (UK)
AuthorRose Tremain
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
PublisherSinclair-Stevenson (UK)
Scribner (US)
Publication date
1992 (UK), 1993 (US)
Media typePrint, audio & eBook
Pages320
ISBN1-85619-118-4

Plot introduction

"At the age of six, Mary Ward, the child of a poor farming family in Suffolk, has a revelation: she isn't Mary, she's a boy. So begins Mary's heroic struggle to change gender, while around her others also strive to find a place of safety and fulfilment in a savage and confusing world".[5]

Reception

Positive review extracts on the back cover of the 2002 Vintage edition :

  • "Hypnotic...Curiously beautiful and strikingly original" - Spectator
  • "Brilliant...A strong, complex, unsentimental novel" - Times Literary Supplement
  • "Rose Tremain writes comedy that can break your heart...Funny absorbing and quite original. I've read nothing to touch it this year" - Literary Review

Stephen Dobyns writes for the New York Times, "a book that makes us feel good about the state of fiction in an uncertain market"[6]

Novelist Lynn Freed observes "The writing... is sheer delight. It is skilled, intelligent storytelling at its best".[7]

Film adaptation

Filmmaker Jan Dunn has acquired the film rights to the novel and is adapting the screenplay.[8] Other sources state that Tremain herself is adapting it in three parts for television.[9]

References
  1. "Fantastic Fiction". fantasticfiction.com. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
  2. "James Tait Black Prize winners". Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
  3. "Prix Femina - Roman Etranger" (in French). Archived from the original on 13 March 2016. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
  4. Tremain, Rose (June 1995). Sacred Country | Book by Rose Tremain - Simon & Schuster. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780671886097. Archived from the original on 2 December 2020. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
  5. Back cover of 2002 Vintage edition
  6. Dobyns, Stephen (11 April 1993). "Muddling Through". New York Times. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
  7. Parent Lesher, Linda (1 February 2000). The Best Novels of the Nineties. McFarland. p. 249. ISBN 0786407425.
  8. "Jan Dunn". united agents. Archived from the original on 22 June 2010. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
  9. "Music and Silence by Rose Tremain". Randomhouse. Archived from the original on 26 February 2005. Retrieved 16 April 2022.


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