A modern fable, a postapocalyptic romance, a Gothic horror story: Angela
Carter's genre-defying fantasia Heroes and Villains.
Sharp-eyed Marianne lives in a white tower made of steel and concrete
with her father and the other Professors. Outside, where the land is
thickly wooded and wild beasts roam, live the Barbarians, who raid and
pillage in order to survive.
Marianne is strictly forbidden to leave her civilised world but,
fascinated by these savage outsiders, decides to escape. There, beyond
the wire fences, she will discover a decaying paradise, encounter the
tattooed Barbarian boy Jewel and go beyond the darkest limits of her
imagination.
Playful, sensuous, violent and gripping, Heroes and Villains is an
ambiguous and deliriously rich blend of postapocalyptic fiction, Gothic
fantasy, literary allusion and twisted romance.
Angela Carter (1940-92) was born in Eastbourne and later evacuated to
live with her grandmother in Yorkshire. She read English at Bristol
University and, after escaping an early marriage, went to live in Japan
for a number of years. She wrote nine novels, which blend fantasy,
science fiction and Gothic, and is often referred to as a writer of
magical realism.
