The Shadows of Elisa Lynch: How a Nineteenth-century Irish Courtesan Became the Most Powerful Woman in Paraguay - Rilegato

Rees, Sian

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0755311140 ISBN 13: 9780755311149

Casa editrice: Headline Review, 2003

Riassunto

In 1854, an ambitious Irish courtesan met a South American General in Paris and returned with him to Paraguay. When he became President, she became his de facto first lady and together they changed the course of the country's history. Consumed by desire for Napoleonic glory, General President Lopez took Paraguay into a disastrous war against her neighbours. Elisa Lynch went with him on campaign, turning conditions of war to her advantage where she could. He was killed in the northern hills but she survived, only to be expelled from Paraguay and die an obscure death in Paris. Reviled and respected, loved and distrusted, Elisa Lynch has been described as both a heroic companion to Lopez and a malign enchantress. In "The Shadows of Elisa Lynch", Sian Rees tells her fascinating story of recovered history.

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Recensione:

This historical recovery meticulously follows a life lived in the ambit of arbitrary power, revealing the compromises of survival along the way... As in her acclaimed first book THE FLOATING BROTHEL, Rees is concerned with history as a collective narrative. This book is vivid with sensual and visceral experience. Rees is as adept at recalling the snatches of a popular song that carried people through a siege as she is at describing wounded soldiers begging for amputation for fear of gangrene. She can pin down human motivation in a line; as when she summarises the General's relationship to his father as "where cowardice met discretion" (Rachel Holmes, BBC History)

Rees's strength as a writer lies, as it did in her earlier book, The Floating Brothel, in her astonishing eye for physical detail and her vivid and evocative reconstructing of physical suffering. Her account of the war, which takes up the bulk of her narrative, is painstakingly realised and brilliantly dramatised (Guardian)

scholarly (Irish Independent)

THE SHADOWS OF ELISA LYNCH is subtly written, stocked with vivid descriptions of wildlife and landscape and arresting... Rees is a determined researcher; consulting primary sourses in Spanish and French, and she conveys the subtleties of South American politics, such as they were. Crucially, she displays more sympathy for her subject (Independent magazine)

The story [Rees] tells is bloody, complicated and dark... Rees writes with confidence, and has a neat turn of phrase... The tales of Elisa Lynch is worth telling (Sunday Telegraph)

An absorbing account of a fascinating true story. Rees... is particularly good at assessing Lynch's historical impact (Belfast Telegraph)

Rees provides a coherent and stirring account of a chaotic time (The List)

Thoroughly researched and [Rees] tells her story scrupulously, with an eye for memorable detail (TLS)

Descrizione del libro:

Bestselling author Siân Rees tells the fascinating story of how a beautiful nineteenth-century Irishwoman came to be the Evita Perón of her day

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Headline Review
• Data di pubblicazione: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0755311140
• ISBN 13: 9780755311149
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 352