Soon to be a film by Baz Luhrmann and Ava Pickett
Before she was a legend, she was a girl.
In a Europe fractured by the violence of the Hundred Years’ War, a peasant girl with a radical vision stands at the centre of a struggle for her nation’s future.
Jehanne has always dreamed of a life beyond her village in eastern France – but the demands of God and country prove greater than she could ever imagine. Stretched to the edges of her sanity and plucked from all she knows, Jehanne finds herself thrust into roles she never sought: warrior, prophet, heretic, saint.
Reimagining one of history’s most captivating figures with breathtaking clarity, Thomas Keneally spins a tale of ambition, delusion, treachery and devotion. And at its heart, a remarkable young woman, haunted by a calling that she cannot ignore.
‘A St. Joan book to remember . . . the familiar tragedy flames up with new and terrible effects in the retelling’
SUNDAY TIMES
‘Saint Joan lives again, in a way we have not known her before . . . Startling and, at the same time, amazingly plausible’
NEW YORK TIMES
‘A vivid recreation of Joan’s age, so full of hypocrisy, vengeance, blood, treachery and madness’
FINANCIAL TIMES
Before she was a legend, she was a girl.
In a Europe fractured by the violence of the Hundred Years’ War, a peasant girl with a radical vision stands at the centre of a struggle for her nation’s future.
Jehanne has always dreamed of a life beyond her village in eastern France – but the demands of God and country prove greater than she could ever imagine. Stretched to the edges of her sanity and plucked from all she knows, Jehanne finds herself thrust into roles she never sought: warrior, prophet, heretic, saint.
Reimagining one of history’s most captivating figures with breathtaking clarity, Thomas Keneally spins a tale of ambition, delusion, treachery and devotion. And at its heart, a remarkable young woman, haunted by a calling that she cannot ignore.
‘A St. Joan book to remember . . . the familiar tragedy flames up with new and terrible effects in the retelling’
SUNDAY TIMES
‘Saint Joan lives again, in a way we have not known her before . . . Startling and, at the same time, amazingly plausible’
NEW YORK TIMES
‘A vivid recreation of Joan’s age, so full of hypocrisy, vengeance, blood, treachery and madness’
FINANCIAL TIMES
Reviews
A St. Joan book to remember . . . the familiar tragedy flames up with new and terrible effects in the retelling
A vivid recreation of Joan's age, so full of hypocrisy, vengeance, blood, treachery and madness - one that is eminently worth reading
A fictionally and spiritually satisfying Joan
A great storyteller
To say that Mr Keneally writes like a man possessed implies an abandon and breathlessness far from his tense, sinewy prose; yet this is perhaps the only way to convey the power and immediate quality of his remarkable novel. The effect is one of excitement and absolute authority
Saint Joan lives again, robustly, in a way we have not known her before . . . The result is startling and, at the same time, amazingly plausible . . . Keneally's Jehanne, alone, is supple and fully dimensional. She is, at times, sharply nostalgic for the world of ordinary loves and lives she must leave behind . . . none of this diminishes Joan. It ennobles her sacrifice by making it real.
A great storyteller
A St Joan book to remember . . . the familiar tragedy flames up with new and terrible effects in the retelling
A vivid recreation of Joan's age, so full of hypocrisy, vengeance, blood, treachery and madness - one that is eminently worth reading
A fictionally and spiritually satisfying Joan
To say that Mr Keneally writes like a man possessed implies an abandon and breathlessness far from his tense, sinewy prose; yet this is perhaps the only way to convey the power and immediate quality of his remarkable novel. The effect is one of excitement and absolute authority
Praise for Thomas Keneally:
'Thomas Keneally is one of the historical novel's most expert practitioners' Guardian
'The best Australian writer alive' Auberon Waugh