Die Säulen des Herakles.

by Nicholas Shakespeare

When Thomas Wavery arrives in Gibralter on his way to take up his posting as HM Consul General to Abyla his passport is stolen by a barbary ape. Ignominy and shame have dogged his steps since he lost both the coveted Lisbon Embassy and his wife as a result of his infatuation with a younger woman.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Pocket Book

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Nicholas William Richmond Shakespeare is a English novelist and biographer.

Born to a diplomat, Nicholas Shakespeare grew up in the Far East and in South America. He was educated at the Dragon School preparatory school in Oxford, then at Winchester College and at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He worked as a journalist for BBC television and then on The Times as assistant arts and literary editor. From 1988 to 1991 he was literary editor of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.

Since 2000, Shakespeare has been Patron of the Anita Goulden Trust, helping children in the Peruvian city of Piura. The UK-based charity was set up following an article that Shakespeare wrote for the Daily Telegraph magazine, which raised more than £350,000.

He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He is married with two small boys and currently lives in Oxford.

Reviews

[Gregory Mose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth struggling past the disjointed first chapter. There are some memorable characters, foremost of which is the North African Spanish enclave of Abyla itself. There are echoes of Lawrence Durrell here, both in the wonderful sense of place and in the occasional tendency to overwrite.

[Tim Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was Wavery's experience that the spirit of a place could be caught in the first week, after which your impressions dulled until the moment arrived when you noticed nothing new and then, as sometimes happened, it required the blast of a bomb for you to notice anything at all.