From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea comes a novel about the work of Nicolas Copernicus, whose work led to the formulation of the image of the solar system as we know it today—a theory that shattered the medieval view of the universe—while being haunted by his malevolent brother and threatened by the conspiracies raging around him and his ideas.
 
Sixteenth-century Europe is teeming with change and controversy: wars are being waged by princes and bishops and the repercussions of Luther are being felt through a convulsing Germany. In a remote corner of Poland a modest canon is practicing medicine and studying the heavens, preparing a theory that will shatter the medieval view of the universe. In this astonishing work of historical imagination, John Banville offers a vivid portrait of a man of painful reticence. For, in a world that is equal parts splendor and barbarism, an obscure cleric who seeks “the secret music of the universe” poses a most devastating threat.
 
Contributor Bio(s)
 
John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of numerous novels, including The Sea, which won the 2005 Booker Prize, and the DI Quirke novels written under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. In 2011 he was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize, in 2013 he was awarded the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature and in 2014 he won the Prince of Asturias Award, Spain’s most important literary prize. He lives in Dublin.