Caryl Phillips, The Nature of Blood

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In her review of

The Nature of Blood

in the

Independent on Sunday

, Catherine Storey has described Caryl Phillips’s novel as “ambitious, pithy, beautifully written – and above all – brave enough to tackle the great, public issues of our century without pity, prurience or maudlin sentiment” (27). Phillips’s sixth novel engages not only with key historical events in the twentieth century, the Holocaust and the creation of Israel, but situates these events in a historical context, tracing their origins in the discrimination, persecution, and racialisation of minorities across the centuries.

Throughout his oeuvre, Phillips has critically engaged with history as a means of representing minorities and their suffering. For him, history constitutes “the prison from which Europeans

2597 words

Citation: Hesse, Isabelle. "The Nature of Blood". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=60, accessed 19 March 2024.]

60 The Nature of Blood 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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