Kennedy & Boyd - Behold Your King

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Behold Your King


	Naomi Mitchison. With an introduction by Moira Burgess
	ISBN 9781849210317
	SERIES The Naomi Mitchison Library
	Paperback 202 pages

	Published 15 August 2009 UK Price £12.95 US Price $18.95
In this unusual and accomplished novel Naomi Mitchison retells in realistic terms and colloquial dialogue the story of the passion and death of Jesus, hour by hour, as it unfolds over the twenty-four hours of Good Friday. In a restless Jerusalem under Roman occupation, political and personal agendas lead inexorably to the crucifixion, while the followers of Jesus - his mother, the fishermen, young Mary of Magdala - can only wait, unhappy and confused. Mitchison, probably inspired by the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947-56, drew, in writing this novel, not only on the New Testament gospels but also on fragmentary or lost gospels and on tradition. Herself a humanist, she scrupulously presents 'the historical Jesus'. But at the end of the novel, as the disciples keep watch by the garden tomb, she leaves the reader with a question: what happened next? Moira Burgess is a novelist, short story writer and literary historian who lives in Glasgow. She is the author of Mitchison's Ghosts (Humming Earth, 2008), on supernatural and mythical elements in the writing of Naomi Mitchison, and is Editor of a collected edition of Mitchison's Essays and Journalism being published by Kennedy & Boyd.

Naomi Mitchison [1897-1999] was a literary phenomenon.
Tireless in her writing, unafraid and often highly unconventional in her opinions, she left an extraordinary legacy.
Her novels for adults and children - based on the classical ancient world, and on the immediately contemporary - stressed at different times her deep interest in Scottish and African societies, as well her concerns for the future.
She also wrote poetry and plays, memoirs, a war diary, book reviews, political articles, and many letters.

Moira Burgess is a novelist, short story writer and literary historian who lives in Glasgow.
She is the author of Mitchison's Ghosts (Humming Earth, 2008), on supernatural and mythical elements in the writing of Naomi Mitchison, and is Editor of a collected edition of Mitchison's Essays and Journalism being published by Kennedy & Boyd.