The King of a Rainy Country, the most intimate novel by writer, activist and intellectual Brigid Brophy, is available for the first time in over twenty years and deserves to see her mentioned in the same breath as her contemporaries Muriel Spark and Iris Murdoch. The book – an hilarious, poignant coming of age novel that takes the reader from rain-drenched bohemian London to operatic Venice via a package holiday with a coachload of Coca-Cola guzzling Americans – is the first book release by The Coelacanth Press. Lauded by leading literary figures including Ali Smith, Terry Castle, D. J. Taylor and Paul Bailey, the press offers this in a beautiful, contemporary package – designed by one of today’s best visual artists, Bonnie Camplin – with introduction by the Press’ editor Phoebe Blatton and afterword by Dalkey Archive Press editor Jennifer Hodgson, all of which serves to assert Brigid Brophy prescience in the modern age. A stylish, far-sighted work of disaffection, sexuality and intellectualism, The King of a Rainy Country deserves to be rediscovered.
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304 pgs, 19.6 × 12.8 cm, Based on the edition of 1990, 2012, 9780957410701