Pascali's Island

Barry Unsworth’s complex study of betrayal, paranoia, deception and fear, delivered by Pascali himself – an altogether untrustworthy narrator.

"A compelling portrait of a schemer whose shabby amorality scarcely ensures his survival in a world where treachery is the rule."  - Boston Sunday Globe

It is the summer of 1908, and a Greek island off the coast of Asia Minor is one small particle of the vast, decaying Ottoman Empire. On the island, a Levantine informer in the pay of the Ottoman authorities, Pascali, has for 20 years been sending in his reports to Constantinople - reports never acknowledged, never acted upon. Now he fears that the Greeks on the island have discovered what he is, and his days are numbered…

Barry Unsworth published 17 novels and is best known for his historical fiction. He was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, winning once for the 1992 novel Sacred Hunger. His novel After Hannibal is a fictionalised description of his efforts at settlement in the Italian countryside.