Tigana
CBC Books | | Posted: February 23, 2017 2:11 PM | Last Updated: July 16, 2019
Guy Gavriel Kay
Peninsula of the Palm is a cursed country. Warrior sorcerers have taken control of most of it, destroying as much culture and infrastructure as they can in the process. Nowhere is it worse than it is in Tigana — a place so dire that people can't even speak its name. But after years of living in darkness, citizens begin a movement to reclaim their beloved country. Guy Gavriel Kay's rich tale of fantasy and revenge is a reflection on what it means to lose one's culture and identity — a theme sure to strike home with any reader.
Tigana won the 1991 Prix Aurora Award.
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From the book
He gave them what they demanded of him, he obeyed the command, but not sullenly or diffidently, and not in shame. Rooted in the land of his fathers, standing before the home of his family he looked towards the sun and let a name burst forth from his soul.
"Tigana!" he cried that all should hear. All of them, everyone in the square. And again, louder yet: "Tigana!" And then a third, a last time, at the very summit of his voice, with pride, with love, with a lasting, unredeemed defiance of the heart.
"TIGANA!"
Through the square that cry rang, along the streets, up to the windows where people watched, over the roofs of houses running westward to the sea or eastward to the temples, and far beyond all of these — a sound, a name, a hurled sorrow in the brightness of the air.
From Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay ©1990. Published by Penguin Random House Canada.