In her review of

in the

, Catherine Storey has described Caryl Phillips’s novel as “ambitious, pithy, beautifully written – and above all – brave enough to tackle the great, public issues of our century without pity, prurience or maudlin sentiment” (27). Phillips’s sixth novel engages not only with key historical events in the twentieth century, the Holocaust and the creation of Israel, but situates these events in a historical context, tracing their origins in the discrimination, persecution, and racialisation of minorities across the centuries.

Throughout his oeuvre, Phillips has critically engaged with history as a means of representing minorities and their suffering. For him, history constitutes “the prison from which Europeans

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Citation: Hesse, Isabelle. "The Nature of Blood". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=60, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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