Sacred Hunger
Winner of the Booker Prize

Liverpool, 1752. William Kemp has lost a fortune in cotton speculation, and must recoup his losses if his son is to marry the wealthy woman whom he loves. His last resort is a slave ship, one that will take him to the Guinea coast, where he will trade for human cargo, then embark on the infamous Middle Passage. When disease ravages the ship and the African prisoners mutiny, William’s profit-seeking venture falls apart. Slaves and sailors alike will join together to found a utopian community on the coast of Florida—not knowing that the vengeful, younger Kemp is in pursuit. Unsworth’s tour de force is a profound meditation on the sacred hunger—the greed—couched within human nature, animating the slave trade. It is a novel that transcends its setting, illuminating larger truths that resonate to this day.
1100879705
Sacred Hunger
Winner of the Booker Prize

Liverpool, 1752. William Kemp has lost a fortune in cotton speculation, and must recoup his losses if his son is to marry the wealthy woman whom he loves. His last resort is a slave ship, one that will take him to the Guinea coast, where he will trade for human cargo, then embark on the infamous Middle Passage. When disease ravages the ship and the African prisoners mutiny, William’s profit-seeking venture falls apart. Slaves and sailors alike will join together to found a utopian community on the coast of Florida—not knowing that the vengeful, younger Kemp is in pursuit. Unsworth’s tour de force is a profound meditation on the sacred hunger—the greed—couched within human nature, animating the slave trade. It is a novel that transcends its setting, illuminating larger truths that resonate to this day.
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Sacred Hunger

Sacred Hunger

by Barry Unsworth
Sacred Hunger

Sacred Hunger

by Barry Unsworth

Paperback(Reprint)

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Overview

Winner of the Booker Prize

Liverpool, 1752. William Kemp has lost a fortune in cotton speculation, and must recoup his losses if his son is to marry the wealthy woman whom he loves. His last resort is a slave ship, one that will take him to the Guinea coast, where he will trade for human cargo, then embark on the infamous Middle Passage. When disease ravages the ship and the African prisoners mutiny, William’s profit-seeking venture falls apart. Slaves and sailors alike will join together to found a utopian community on the coast of Florida—not knowing that the vengeful, younger Kemp is in pursuit. Unsworth’s tour de force is a profound meditation on the sacred hunger—the greed—couched within human nature, animating the slave trade. It is a novel that transcends its setting, illuminating larger truths that resonate to this day.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780525434115
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date: 08/22/2017
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 640
Product dimensions: 5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Barry Unsworth was born in 1930 and grew up in a mining town in northeast England. Descended from a long line of coal miners, he was the first Unsworth to escape the mines. He attended Manchester University and published his first novel, The Partnership, in 1966. He is the author of seventeen books, including The Ruby in Her Navel, longlisted for the Booker Prize; Pascali’s Island and Morality Play, both shortlisted for the Booker; and Sacred Hunger, co-winner of the Booker Prize. He died in 2012 at the age of eighty-one.

Read an Excerpt

The ship he meant was the Liverpool Merchant, Captain Saul Thurso, and he had never seen her, though she carried the seeds Of all his dreams in her hold.
(Continues…)



Excerpted from "Sacred Hunger"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Barry Unsworth.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Possibly the best novel I've read in the last decade.

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