The Gift of Stones (Collier Fiction) - Softcover

Jim Crace is the author of Continent, The Gift of Stones, and Arcadia. He has won the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the David Higham Prize, and the Guardian Fiction Award. He lives in Birmingham, England.

If Crace's name is not yet familiar to American readers, it soon should be. This 42-year-old Englishman's second work continues in the imaginative and almost poetic vein of his Continent ( LJ 3/1/87). Once again he creates a world, in this case a Stone Age village, seemingly distant from our own and yet so like it as to be almost frightening. It is a world confronting change brought on by the advent of bronze, a technological development not unlike the coming of the computer. The villagers, once secure and flourishing, suddenly find their craft--and themselves--obsolete. As the fabulist tale unwinds, Crace looks into the role of the artist in society--here, a storyteller--considering both the impact and limits of imagination in guiding us toward new horizons. A marvelous literary effort; highly recommended.
- David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
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