Poor Banished Children: A Novel
3/5
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About this ebook
An explosion is heard off the coast of seventeenth-century England, and a woman washes up on the shore. She is barely alive and does not speak English, but she asks for a priest . . . In Latin.
She has a confession to make and a story to tell, but who is she and from where has she come?
Cast out of her superstitious, Maltese family, Warda turns to begging and stealing until she is fostered by an understanding Catholic priest who teaches her the art of healing. Her willful nature and hard-earned independence make her unfit for marriage, and so the good priest sends Warda to serve an anchorite, in the hope that his protégé will discern a religious vocation.
Such a calling Warda never has the opportunity to hear. Barbary pirates raid her village, capture her and sell her into slavery in Muslim North Africa. In the merciless land of Warda's captivity, her wits, nerve, and self-respect are tested daily, as she struggles to survive without submitting to total and permanent enslavement. As she is slowly worn down by the brutality of her circumstances, she comes to believe that God has abandoned her and falls into despair, hatred, and a pattern of behavior which, ironically, mirrors that of her masters.
Poor Banished Children is the tale of one woman's relentless search for freedom and redemption. The historical novel raises challenging questions about the nature of courage, free will, and ultimately salvation.
- An award-winning European novelist presents a powerful story of mystery, adventure, peril, suffering, faith, and courage
- A thrilling historical novel that explores the life and cultures of 17th century England, Malta and Africa
- A challenging work that tells the story of one woman's relentless search for freedom and redemption amidst great suffering, loneliness and despair
Fiorella De Maria
Fiorella De Maria was born in Italy of Maltese parents. She grew up in Wiltshire, England, and attended Cambridge University, where she received a Bachelor’s in English Literature and a Master’s in Renaissance Literature. She lives in Surrey with her husband and children. A winner of the National Book Prize of Malta, she has published four other novels with Ignatius Press: Poor Banished Children, Do No Harm, We'll Never Tell Them and the first Father Gabriel mystery, The Sleeping Witness.
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Reviews for Poor Banished Children
7 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Poor Banished Children. Fiorella de Maria. 2011. The second of the 3 books Marinella and Doug lent me is a historical novel about the Barbary pirates and a young woman’s determination to survive with her honor. In seventeenth century England a mysterious young woman is washed ashore. She knows no English and we learn her story in flashbacks as she makes her confession to a priest. After her family deserted her, a priest took her in and educated her in the classics as well as medicine. She was captured by Barbary Pirates, sold to a Moslem man and eventually made her escape with the help of another priest and a pirate. Her story is full of cruelty and kindness as she struggles to gain her freedom. This was an interesting story as I’d never thought much about the horror a woman would be subjected to if she were kidnapped and sold into slavery. Cruelty and violence
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Very intense. Interesting ending. The main character was too guilt-ridden.