Emma Darwin examines the importance of faith during a turbulent period of European history, and how difficult it is to convey the “visceral” quality and power of religious belief when writing historical fiction. Evoking love comes more easily to us, yet love and faith have often been in conflict, as in her latest novel, The […]
The Bruegel Boy by Emma Darwin
In the summer of 1566 an inferno of political rebellion and image-smashing, the Beeldenstorm, swept across Flanders and Holland; young Gillis Vervloet, model and muse to artist Pieter Bruegel, almost didn’t survive. More than 60 years later, in the Saarland forest, Gil wants only to enter the monastery of St Bartolomëus and live out his days […]
The Dunkirkers – the 17th century’s forgotten pirates
Eleanor Swift-Hook thinks it’s time we remembered the Dunkirkers, the most feared pirates of the early 17th century. Forgotten by most of us, these privateers operating in the English Channel were, in their time, the terrors of the seas. My mistress, his good mother, with a daughterAbout the age of six, crossing to Jersey,Was taken […]