Children of Paradise

Fred D'Aguiar

Feb. 2014 · Granta Books

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In the opening pages of this novel, an accident brings a young girl to the attention of the Preacher, the all-powerful leader of a religious cult secluded in the jungle. Trina has only dim memories of the life she lived with her mother before they joined the community and the closed, close society is all she knows. When she is singled out for special favour, it becomes clear that the gaze of the Preacher can be a dangerous thing. As the Preacher's behaviour and the demands he places on his followers become more extreme, Trina's mother begins to question her faith in the charismatic but fatally flawed leader and to dream of an escape from his control.

In this powerful re-imagining of the infamous Jonestown tragedy, D'Aguiar writes with the lyrical intensity of a poet, examining the motivations and obsessions that lead to religious fanaticism. This is a novel about the betrayal of faith and of innocence, a story about love, devotion and mania that is a brave attempt to understand the reasoning of people who would, in the end, kill their own children in the prelude to a mass suicide that shocked the world. Although history tells us that the ending of this story can never be anything other than a tragedy, D'Aguiar's compassion, and his ability to draw the reader into the intimate and terrible reality of lives lived at the whim of a corrupt and dangerous cult leader, ensure that in the end this is a story of hope.

Autoren-Profil

Poet, novelist and playwright FRED D'AGUIAR was born in London in 1960 to Guyanese parents. He lived in Guyana until he was 12, returning to England in 1972. His first collection of poetry, Mama Dot (1985) won the Guyana Poetry Prize, and his novel The Longest Memory won the Whitbread First Novel Award. He has since published seven collections of poetry and six novels, including Bethany Bettany (2003). He is currently Professor of English at Virginia Tech.