Sparrow: The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller

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In my home in Austin, Texas, I am up to my knees in cat hair and books about Roman history, society, and culture. I had two years of Latin in high school many years ago, but I’m hopeless at it, so I have also read a lot of Roman literature in translation. While I was writing Sparrow, I held down a state government job, so for the ten years it took to research and write the book, I did most of my work during my off hours. Euterpe and Sparrow finally decide to attempt an escape. But from the beginning of the book, Sparrow has told the reader that no happy ending is possible. “No touching final reunion will ever be performed in this play. Nothing will be revealed, or redeemed or healed. The story will simply stop.” Bob Mortimer wins 2023 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction with The Satsuma Complex The world that Hynes has built is initially confined to the brothel, the kitchen where Sparrow sleeps alongside the cook Focaria, and the herb garden where they forage. Sparrow avoids the tavern, which is full of loud and violent men, and upstairs, where the slave prostitutes, known as wolves, live and ply their trade.

Schon vom Setting und dem Stand des Protagonisten wird klar, dass es zu grausamen Szenen kommen wird - diese sind aber stilvoll und in ertragbarem Maße geschildert. Den Großteil der Handlung bildet der Alltag des namenlosen Protagonisten und seine Beziehungen zu den Frauen, unter denen er aufwächst. Für mich waren alle "Wölfinen" interessante Persönlichkeiten, wobei der Fokus auf drei sehr unterschiedlichen Mutterfiguren liegt, die man besonders gut kennenlernt. Sparrow endures so much pain and cruelty that it becomes normal to him and it is for the reader to remember that it is all happening to a child. The careless brutality is a part of all the slaves’ lives and lingers even with those that are freed. After he is raped for the first time Sparrow still has to take the soiled linens to Nazarius, the freedman who owns the laundry. A man who has been indifferent to the young boy up to now shows an unexpected kindness and understanding: Focaria is the most interesting to me because I feel like so much she could’ve been that she wasn’t. That complicated relationship between being a carer for a child, a mother in a sense, but it being forced on you? That love-hate that could’ve been, instead replaced by her being jealous of a child. She spends most of the book being cruel to him, literally attempting to kill him (for something that wasn’t his fault, which she knows wasn't his fault) and then turning around at the end and holding his hand as she skips into the sunset with him? Be for real. The climax of the novel comes when Euterpe persuades Sparrow to try and flee the city with her. Sparrow is convinced that her plan is doomed to fail, but chooses to go along with her. Sparrow’s fate hangs in the balance as he and Euterpe navigate their escape. Für mich ist es unsagbar schwer dieses Buch in Worte zu fassen- vor allem die richtigen Worte zu finden. Die Geschichte wird uns aus Sicht des Mannes, der damals als Junge seinen Lebensweg beginnt erzählt, und das machte es für mich persönlich nur noch schmerzvoller und so greifbar.

Sparrow

When one of the wolves, Melpomene, takes over the running of the brothel, there is hope that things might change. But for Melpomene “the whole world is a whorehouse” and she presses the other wolves to work even harder. Earning more tips is the only route to freedom. I had heard a lot about this book, but wasn't 100% convinced it would be my cup of tea, I thought it may be a bit too literary for me. I could not have been more wrong. I was super wrapped up in the characters from the very beginning.

Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South. Raised in a brothel at the edge of a dying empire, a boy of no known origin creates his own identity. This is a beautifully written book about a brutally ugly life. It's very hard to read at times. But there are fleeting moments of love and pleasure. And, in my opinion, one of the great things about historical fiction is the perspective that it provides on many times and places. This novel of enslaved people in ancient Spain gave me a new perspective on American slavery and, in general, what it means to be completely powerless over your own life. In particular, it was very pointed about why slaves (and other powerless people) learn to tell lies. Set in a brothel we follow a slave boy as he grows, from kitchen hand, to dogsbody to Wolf. He has no name and instead is known by different things by all those around him, whether that be Pusus/Antiochus/Little One/Mouse/Antinous. Of all his names he most associates with Sparrow.What are we waiting for?’ Focaria drops to her knees next to Audo. With one hand she pinches his nostrils shut and with her other she snatches up Euterpe’s discarded mantle and stuffs a corner of it deep in his mouth. Audo gags and clutches weakly at Focaria’s wrists, but she doesn’t let go. He is Sparrow, who sings without reason and can fly from trouble. His world is a kitchen, a herb-scented garden, a loud and dangerous tavern, and the mysterious upstairs where the ‘wolves’ – prostitutes and slaves from every corner of the empire – conduct their business. This was not the happiest of books - its incredibly downbeat but there is so much hope and fight, that you just want the characters to get out of the life they are living. You feel like they should, and you feel like they can. Never once do the characters feel sorry for themselves, they are fighters. This makes the sad and dark subject matter easier to read.

An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored. This is the book The Wolf Den was too scared to be. Forget The Wolf Den’s Pretty Woman bullshit, this time it’s going down for real. The late Roman Empire is here and it’s ugly af.

Dystopian Fiction Books Everyone Should Read: Explore The Darker Side of Possible Worlds and Alternative Futures A bleak and brutal story, vividly told by Hynes, who has created a truly unforgettable character in the resilient Sparrow. Daily Mail (UK) A very graphic (seriously, trigger warnings ⚠️), very bleak look at what it’s like to have to live in slavery, not even given the curtesy of having a real name. When not being told stories by his beloved ‘mother’ Euterpe, he runs errands for her lover the cook, dodging the blows of their brutal overseer or the machinations of the chief wolf, Melpomene.