The Dream of the Celt

In an epic and moving novel spanning three continents, one of the world's greatest writers re-imagines the life of Roger Casement, the most controversial hero of Irish nationalism, eventually hanged by the British for his anti-British activities, but more-so for his homosexuality. It is 1916 and Roger Casement awaits the hangman in London's Pentonville Prison. Dublin lies in ruins after the disastrous Easter Rising led by his comrades of the Irish Volunteers. He has been caught after landing from a German submarine. For the past year he has attempted to raise an Irish brigade from prisoners of war to fight alongside the Germans against the British Empire that awarded him a knighthood only a few years before. And now his petition for clemency is threatened by the leaking of his private diary with its details of his secret life as a gay man (and energetic homosexual activites)... Mario Vargas Llosa, with his incomparable gift for powerful historical narrative, takes the reader on a journey back through a remarkable life dedicated to the exposure of the barbaric treatment of indigenous peoples by the European colonialists in the Congo and Amazonia. Casement was feted as one of the greatest humanitarians of the age, and his ignominious death as a traitor is widely considered one of the great crimes of the British empire.

Paperback, 400 Pages, Published 2012