The Pope's Daughter
2017 Longlist

The Pope’s Daughter

Translated from the original Italian by Antony Shugaar

ABOUT
THE BOOK

Lucrezia Borgia is one of the most vilified figures in modern history. The daughter of a notorious pope, she was twice betrothed before the age of eleven and thrice married-one husband was forced to declare himself impotent and thereby unfit and another was murdered by Lucrezia’s own brother, Cesar Borgia. She is cast in the role of murderess, temptress, incestuous lover, loose woman, femme fatale par excellence. But there is always more than one version of a story. Lucrezia Borgia is the only woman in history to serve as the head of the Catholic Church. She successfully administered several of Renaissance Italy’s most thriving cities, founded one of the world’s first credit unions, and was a generous patron of the arts. She was mother to a prince and to a cardinal. She was a devoted wife to the Prince of Ferrara, and the lover of the poet Pietro Bembo. She was a child of the renaissance and in many ways the world’s first modern woman.

Dario Fo reveals Lucrezia’s humanity, her passion for life, her compassion for others, and her skill at navigating around her family’s evildoings. The Borgias are unrivalled for the range and magnitude of their political machinations and opportunism. Fo’s brilliance rests in his rendering their story as a shocking mirror image of the uses and abuses of power in our own time. Lucrezia herself becomes a model for how to survive and rise above those abuses.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Dario
Fo

Born near Lago Maggiore in Italy in 1926, Dario Fo is an actor, playwright, comedian, director, songwriter and political campaigner.

His first one-act play was produced in 1958 and since then he has written, directed and acted in over forty plays and theatrical productions. In 1997 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. With a blend of laughter and gravity he opens our eyes to abuses and injustices in society and also the wider historical perspective in which they can be placed.”

The Pope’s Daughter is his first novel.

Born near Lago Maggiore in Italy in 1926, Dario Fo is an actor, playwright, comedian, director, songwriter and political campaigner.

His first one-act play was produced in 1958 and since then he has written, directed and acted in over forty plays and theatrical productions. In 1997 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. With a blend of laughter and gravity he opens our eyes to abuses and injustices in society and also the wider historical perspective in which they can be placed.”

The Pope’s Daughter is his first novel.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
06/08/2015
Country
Italy
Original Language
Italian
Author
Publisher
Europa Editions
Translator
Antony Shugaar
Translation
Translated from the original Italian by Antony Shugaar

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