Argall

For the past ten years, acclaimed author William T. Vollmann has been working on one of the most ambitious novelistic projects of his generation: a seven-volume series of novels that examines the repeated collisions between Native Americans and European colonisers. In ARGALL, a stand-alone novel of extraordinary intensity, Vollmann alternates between extravagant Elizabethan language and gritty realism in an attempt to imagine what the lives of John Smith, Pocahontas, and their contemporaries might really have been like. Behind all of these characters stands the terrifying figure of Captain Samuel Argall, who will abduct Pocahontas, burn Indian towns, and bring black slavery to North America. This magnificent novel digs beneath the romantic legend of Pocahontas and the betrayals, disappointments, and atrocities behind it, offering a moving tale of dispossession that will appeal to fans of history and contemporary fiction alike.