Doubting Thomas
ABOUT
THE BOOK
At the centre of Doubting Thomas are the events of a May evening in Rome in 1606 when the painter Caravaggio was challenged to a duel and killed a man. What was the cause of the fight that resulted in him fleeing Rome into exile? Evidence found in the Vatican archives provides some clues in the form of first-person witness statements of nine people who came in contact with the artist before his flight and subsequent mysterious death in exile.
Doubting Thomas explores destiny, sensuality, love, brutality, unquestioning religious faith and the line between the scared and the profane as well as the reliability of memory. It asks how far an artist may go and how an aggressive, self-destructive and heavy-drinking libertine could create an art of genius that united a passionate, sensual nature with a keen sense of observation, an intense aesthetic sensibility and an unorthodox kind of religious devotion.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Anne
Born
Anne Rosemary Cookes (1924 – 2011) was born in south London on 9 July 1924. She joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry during the Second World War, and taught Morse code at the SOE at Grendon Underwood, Bucks, where she met Povl Born, a Danish air force pilot. In 1946 they married and moved to Copenhagen, where she studied English literature at the university. She became fluent in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.
She began writing poetry and, at the same time, began translating Scandinavian writers into English, such as Hans Christian Andersen, Karen Blixen, Jens Christian Grøndahl, Per Petterson, Michael Larsen, Janne Teller, Stig Holmas, Carsten Jensen, Sissel Lie, Henrik Stangerup, and Knud Hjortø.
In the 1980s, she moved to Salcombe, Devon, where she wrote books on local history. She founded the poetry publisher Overstep Books in 1992, and ran it until 2008.
Anne Rosemary Cookes (1924 – 2011) was born in south London on 9 July 1924. She joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry during the Second World War, and taught Morse code at the SOE at Grendon Underwood, Bucks, where she met Povl Born, a Danish air force pilot. In 1946 they married and moved to Copenhagen, where she studied English literature at the university. She became fluent in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.
She began writing poetry and, at the same time, began translating Scandinavian writers into English, such as Hans Christian Andersen, Karen Blixen, Jens Christian Grøndahl, Per Petterson, Michael Larsen, Janne Teller, Stig Holmas, Carsten Jensen, Sissel Lie, Henrik Stangerup, and Knud Hjortø.
In the 1980s, she moved to Salcombe, Devon, where she wrote books on local history. She founded the poetry publisher Overstep Books in 1992, and ran it until 2008.