The vision of Elena Silves

In the Amazon city of Belen, in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, three old men sit on a bench.

They sit in the square every day under the hot sun, remembering the women they loved and the world when it was a better place.

One day, a woman hurries past their bench whom all have reason to remember - Elena Silves, the girl with eyes as blue as the sky who once saw a vision and has been incarcerated by the Church authorities in a convent high in the Andes ever since.

But the old men remember something else. They remember that Elena had been in love at the time with Gabriel, a student revolutionary who became the most wanted man in Belen. "Written with precision, clarity and rare beauty - alongside Salman Rushdie and the late Bruce Chatwin, Shakespeare now joins the ranks of the New Exotics school" - Robert Carver, "New Statesman". "A story of love and insurrection brilliantly told - a remarkable debut - one of the best books about the continent written by an outsider" - "Sunday Times". "An Englishman's novel of magic realism, flavoured with the more traditional English spices such as thriller and tourchsong, and a touch of Anglo-Saxon irony - a fine literary novel, combining several traditions and genres of fiction" - "The Times". "A novel of action in the best tradition of Conrad and Greene - Love, violence, revolution and death - a denouement that is unexpected, shocking and brilliantly conceived - I closed the novel with both satisfaction and regret" - "Literary Review". ""The Vision of Elena Silves" is a terrific novel" - John Sutherland, "London Review of Books".