Rorate is happy to announce to our readers the publication of the long-awaited English edition of Italian writer, Elizabetta Sala’s* first-rate historical novel, ‘The Execution of Justice’, a page-turning thriller.
Just over three years ago we published a review by
Antonio Socci on Sala’s Italian work (see here: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2019/09/socci-shakespeare-great-voice-of.html) wherein he praised the author’s superlative,
narrative writing skills with particular regard to this novel. Socci
wrote then:
‘It’s the finest,
most exciting, most poignant novel I have read in a long time. A real surprise.
It captures the reader’s attention from the very first page. It is a
historical novel, easy to read, set in the London of the year 1605, amid the
alleys, taverns, palaces, shops and theatres on the banks of the Thames.
We become deeply immersed in the London of the early 17th century
- so much so - that you don’t want this story (of love also) to end,
full as it is of intrigues, heroic martyrdoms, plots, cowardly betrayals, spies
and power-struggles.’
I too have read this novel in Italian – and finally,
recently, had the pleasure of reading it in English. I unequivocally apply the same comment I made
on Socci’s article to the latest English edition of this compelling story (it
would make a wonderful movie plot, by the way!):
‘I heartily endorse every word of Antonio Socci’s review […] on
Elisabetta Sala’s first novel “The Execution of Justice’ […] It is truly a
page-turner written by an exceptionally talented author. […] F.R.
Here are two other short
laudatory reviews on the cover of the book by two famous Shakespearian
scholars:
‘Altogether, this is at once an enchanting, engrossing, intriguing novel
and a novel approach to early modern history, such as to throw an unaccustomed
light on the inner meaning of
Shakespeare’s great tragedies from Hamlet and Macbeth to King Lear.’
Peter Milward, SJ **
‘This
thrilling and chilling historical novel brings Shakespeare’s England to vivid
life amid the backdrop of the vicious intrigue of the plot to kill the King and
blow-up Parliament.’
Joseph Pearce***
A synopsis of the story on the book’s
cover
When Jack Digby’s father is executed for high treason, the boy’s dream
life turns into the worst of nightmares; and when he is forced into the murky,
ruthless world of double agents and cowardly betrayals, his fate would seem to
be already written. As he grows up, however, he discovers that something is
wrong with the official narrative concerning his father’s tragic end. It will
take time and suffering for him to discover that things are rarely as they
seem, that the King’s Men – the greatest playing company of all time – are not
just simple entertainers; that our most bitter enemies may turn into our best
friends; that, at times, Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair.’
Link to order the book:
The Execution of Justice: A Novel : Sala, Elisabetta, Robertson, Mary Anne: Amazon.it: Libri
It is also available on Kindle:
REFERENCE NOTES
*Elisabetta Sala is a teacher of English history and
literature. To date she has published a book on Henry VIII, one on Elizabeth I,
and one on the life and works of William Shakespeare. She is the author of
another novel besides The Execution of
Justice: Il cardo e la spada [The Thistle and the
Sword], set in Germany during the Thirty Years’ War and most recently she
published a long essay on Leo Tolstoy – The Interior Fire.
**Father Peter Milward, SJ (12 October 1925 – 16 August 2017) was a Jesuit priest and literary scholar. He was emeritus professor of English Literature at Sophia University in Tokyo and a leading figure in scholarship on English Renaissance literature. He was chair of the Renaissance Institute at Sophia University from its inception in 1974 until it was closed down in 2014 and director of the Renaissance Centre from its start in 1984 until it was closed down in 2002. He primarily published on the works of William Shakespeare (starting with his ground-breaking work Shakespeare’s Religious Background) and Gerard Manley Hopkins.
***Joseph Pearce (born February
12, 1961), is an English-born American writer, and as of 2014 Director of
the Center for Faith and Culture at Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee. He has written biographies of many
Christian literary figures, including William Shakespeare, J. R. R. Tolkien, Oscar Wilde, C. S. Lewis, G. K.
Chesterton, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Hilaire Belloc. His books have been translated into
at least nine languages.
