num_pages: 186
description: From the double Man Booker prize-winning author of `Wolf Hall', this is a dark fable of lost faith and awakening love amidst the moors.Fetherhoughton is a drab, dreary town somewhere in a magical, half-real 1950s north England, a preserve of ignorance and superstition protected against the advance of reason by its impenetrable moor-fogs. Father Angwin, the town's cynical priest, has lost his faith, and wants nothing more than to be left alone. Sister Philomena strains against the monotony of convent life and the pettiness of her fellow nuns. The rest of the town goes about their lives in a haze, a never-ending procession of grim, grey days stretching ahead of them.Yet all of that is about to change. A strange visitor appears one stormy night, bringing with him the hint, the taste of something entirely new, something unknown. But who is Fludd? An angel come to shake the Fetherhoughtonians from their stupor, to reawaken Father Angwin's faith, to show Philomena the nature of love? Or is he the devil himself, a shadowy wanderer of the darkest places in the human heart?Full of dry wit, compassionate characterisations and cutting insight, Fludd is a brilliant gem of a book, and one of Hilary Mantel's most original works.
language: English
title: Fludd
titlecomplete: Fludd
genres: Fiction, Historical, Religion, Mystery, British Literature, Literature, Novels, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 5134
places: Fetherhoughton
awards: awardedAt: 599644800000
name: Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, awardedAt: 631180800000
name: Cheltenham Prize for Literature, awardedAt: 631180800000
name: Southern Arts Literature Prize
publisher: Penguin Books Ltd