Set in fourth-century B.C. Greece, The Mask of Apollo is narrated by Nikeratos, a tragic actor who takes with him on all his travels a gold mask of Apollo, a relic of the theatre's golden age, which is now past. At first his mascot, the mask gradually becomes his conscience, and he refers to it his gravest decisions, when he finds himself at the centre of a political crisis in which the philosopher Plato is also involved. Much of the action is set in Syracuse, where Plato's friend Dion is trying to persuade the young tyrant Dionysios the Younger to accept the rule of law. Through Nikeratos' eyes, the reader watches as the clash between the two unleashes all the pent-up violence in the city.
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Product Details
Weight: 290g
Dimensions: 127 x 196mm
Publication Date: 06 Aug 2015
Publisher: Little Brown Book Group
Publication City/Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781844089567
About Mary Renault
Mary Renault (1905-1983) was born in London and educated at St Hughs Oxford. She trained as a nurse at Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary where she met her lifelong partner Julie Mullard. Her first novel Purposes of Love was published in 1937. In 1948 after North Face won a MGM prize worth $150000 she and Mullard emigrated to South Africa. There Renault was able to write forthrightly about homosexual relationships for the first time - in her masterpiece The Charioteer (1953) and then in her first historical novel The Last of the Wine (1956). Renault's vivid novels set in the ancient world brought her worldwide fame. In 2010 Fire From Heaven was shortlisted for the Lost Booker of 1970.