Morality Play
Synopsis
It is late in the fourteenth century, a time of calamity such as few others have been, marked by war, plague and fear of hell-fire. Nicholas Barber, a footloose young cleric, has left his diocese without his Bishop’s leave. He has sung in taverns, he has gambled away his holy relics, he has committed adultery. Now, to compound his sins, he has joined a troupe of travelling players, a thing expressly forbidden to members of the clergy. Trouble enough, but nothing compared to what happens when the company decides to enact the murder of the young boy called Thomas Wells.
Author Biography
Barry Unsworth was born in 1930 in Durham. He travelled extensively in Greece and Turkey during the 1960s, teaching at the Universities of Istanbul and Athens. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His first novel, The Partnership, was published in 1966. It was followed by The Greeks Have a Word For It (1967), The Hide (1970), and Mooncranker’s Gift (1973), winner of the Heinemann Award. Pascali’s Island (1980) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and was later adapted as a film starring Ben Kingsley. His tenth novel, Sacred Hunger (1992), was joint winner of the Booker Prize in 1992. Barry Unsworth lives in Umbria, Italy. He was awarded an honorary Litt.D. by Manchester University in 1998.
