خویشاوند خون

Shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize A chef, a portraitist and a barber are taken hostage in a coup to overthrow their boss, the President. They are held captive in a palatial retreat in the mountains high above the capital city. Far below them, chaos tears through the streets. The chef's daughter, the portraitist's wife and the barber's lover watch their men from the shadows. In such precarious times, intimate relationships are as dangerous as political ones. As the old order falls, so does the veil that hides the truth about these men and women's secret passions. Drawing her readers masterfully towards the novel's devastating climax, Ceridwen Dovey reveals how humanity's most atavistic impulses - vanity, vengeance and greed - seethe, relentlessly, just beneath the veneer of civility. Blood Kin is a clever novel about a military coup told by the ex-president's barber, chef, and portraitist.This novel is not set in any particular country, time or place. The characters have no identifying physical characteristics. They don't have names. We simply know them as the ex-president's barber, chef, and portraitist; men who perform essential tasks and try not to see what's happening around them. Our three men are held captive in the ex-President's Summer Palace as a military Commander destroys the old regime. All three men start to provide their services for the Commander, just as they did for the President before the coup, but before long, they question the Commander's authority and things begin to unravel. The mysterious connections between these men and their lovers come to the surface; and we discover that nobody is as innocent as he or she seems. Each one of them is attempting to atone for or cover up acts of cruelty, whether personal or political. In the end, who will manage to resist the corruptive force of power and who will give in? A barber, a chef and a portraitist are held hostage in a sparsely-furnished room, in a grand summer residence perched on a hill overlooking the capital city of a nameless hot country. They have been seized in a bloody coup to depose the President, their boss. In the city streets below them, chaos reigns Rejacketed and relaunched, Ceridwen Dovey's unforgettable and gripping novel is now in paperback, its natural format: 'Blood Kin is a fable of the arrogance of power, beneath whose dreamlike surface swirl currents of complex sensuality, male and (particularly) female.' J. M. Coetzee A chef, a portraitist and a barber are taken hostage in a coup to overthrow their boss, the President. They are held high above a capital city. Far below them, chaos tears through the streets