Description:

Description:




Winner of
the prestigious 'Premio Novela Breve Juan March Cencillo'


May 1814. On the island of Elba, the beekeeper Andrea Pasolini awaits
the arrival of the defeated, exiled emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte. Pasolini is a self-taught
disciple of the Enlightenment, whose first love is reading books on philosophy
and apiculture – a secret, illicit activity he undertakes in his cellar at
night. The defeated emperor is likewise fascinated, with the swarming of bees
and the beauty of honey. From a distance, an obsessive interest develops
between the two men, as anticipation builds around a visit by the emperor to inspect
Pasolini's beehives.


In his novella, José Luis de Juan meticulously interweaves historical sources with an imagining
of the lives of two very different men, one a humble apiarist on an island, the
other – also born on an island – who aspires to be the ruler of the universe.
Amid an atmosphere of exchangeable identities, powerful dreams, furtive plots
and deferred uprisings, in favour of Napoleon or against him, each man carries
the conviction that the social organisation of bees holds the key to how the
future will unfold.