This is a gripping story of identity, connection with our past, and the power of words to create or devastate. Like no other novel yet written, it illuminates an era when bold internationalism gave way to a post-war landscape of narrowly defined �Americanism�. Crossing two decades, from the vibrant revolutionary murals of Mexico City to the halls of a Congress bent on eradicating the colour red, The Lacuna is as deep and rich as the New World itself.

Shortlisted for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2009

Shortlisted for
Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2009 and
The South Bank Show Awards: Literature 2010.

Here is a bittersweet tale of hopes frustrated and fulfilled, with an irresistible love story at its heart.

Lavinia is the daughter of the King of Latium, a victorious warrior who loves peace; she is her father's closest companion. Now of an age to wed, Lavinia's mother favours her own kinsman, young King Turnus of Rutulia, handsome, heroic, everything a young girl should want. Instead, Lavinia dreams of mighty Aeneas, a man she has heard of only from a shade, a ghost of a poet, who comes to her in the gods' holy place and tells her of her future, and Aeneas's past ...
If she denies Turnus, Lavinia knows she will start a war - but her fate was set the moment the poet appeared to her in a dream and spoke of the adventurer who fled from his fallen city, holding his son's hand and ... more