The Anchoress

The Anchoress

by RobynCadwallader (Author)

Synopsis

England, 1255: Sarah is only seventeen when she chooses to become an anchoress, a holy woman shut away in a small cell, measuring seven paces by nine, at the side of the village church. Fleeing the grief of losing a much-loved sister in childbirth and the pressure to marry, she decides to renounce the world, with all its dangers, desires and temptations, and to commit herself to a life of prayer and service to God. But as she slowly begins to understand, even the thick, unforgiving walls of her cell cannot keep the outside world away, and it is soon clear that Sarah's body and soul are still in great danger... Robyn Cadwallader's powerful debut novel tells an absorbing story of faith, desire, shame, fear and the very human need for connection and touch. With a poetic intelligence, Cadwallader explores the relationship between the mind, body and spirit in Medieval England in a story that will hold the reader in a spell until the very last page.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Edition: Main
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 07 Apr 2016

ISBN 10: 0571313345
ISBN 13: 9780571313341
Book Overview: An unforgettable debut set in thirteenth-century England, The Anchoress resonates profoundly with the issues facing women today.

Media Reviews
Robyn Cadwallader does the real work of historical fiction, creating a detailed, sensuous and richly imagined shard of the past. She has successfully placed her narrator, the anchoress, in that tantalizing, precarious, delicate realm: convincingly of her own distant era, yet emotionally engaging and vividly present to us in our own. --Geraldine Brooks, author of Caleb's Crossing and March
Sarah's story is so beautiful, so rich, so strange, unexpected, and thoughtful-also suspenseful. The narrative examines the question of whether a woman can ever really retreat from the world, or whether the world will always find a way to come after you . . . I loved this book.--Elizabeth Gilbert
Robyn Cadwallader does the real work of historical fiction, creating a detailed, sensuous and richly imagined shard of the past. She has successfully placed her narrator, the anchoress, in that tantalizing, precarious, delicate realm: convincingly of her own distant era, yet emotionally engaging and vividly present to us in our own.--Geraldine Brooks
Author Bio
Robyn Cadwallader has published numerous, prize-winning short stories, poems and reviews, as well as a book of poetry and a non-fiction book based on her PhD thesis which explored attitudes to virginity and female agency in the Middle Ages. She lives among vineyards outside the Australian capital when not travelling to England for research, visiting ancient archaeological sites along the way.