The dream of the Celt
| Title | The dream of the Celt |
|---|---|
| Original title | El sueño del celta |
| Author | Mario Vargas Llosa; transl. by Edith Grossman |
| Publication | Faber and Faber |
| Size | 404p |
| Language |  ENG |
| ISBN | 9780571275724 |
| Topics |
Peruvian fiction--Biographical Peruvian fiction--Historical Casement, Roger (1864-1916) Human rights Political activists--Fiction |
| Notes | portrays the life of Sir Roger Casement (1864-1916), an Anglo-Irish man who became a British diplomat, known for investigating human rights abuses of indigenous peoples in the Congo and the Putumayo District of Peru. He came to support the nationalist cause for Irish independence, soliciting German armed aid against Britain during World War I. The title of the novel is from one of Casement's poems. The Dream of the Celt combines elements of the historical novel with those of the journalistic chronicle; the main human and historical themes explored are those relating Casement's investigation into the colonial subjugation and enslavement (via a process of systematic terror and torture) of the native inhabitants of the Congo Basin by the Belgian king and of the Putumayo in the Peruvian Amazon by private business during the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. The novel invites comparison with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It is within this larger context that the complex and ultimately tragic story of British consul Roger Casement unfolds. He was strongly affected by his investigation of and first-hand accounts of the systematic tortures inflicted on the native inhabitants of the Congo and Peru to satisfy European commercial demand; he was awarded a British knighthood for his work on these same humanitarian endeavors; and he began to see Ireland as suffering from similar colonial repression, becoming a radical nationalist fighter for Irish independence. This led him to propose collaboration with the German military during the Great War, and participate in the Easter Rising, for which he was arrested, tried and convicted of treason by the British. His homosexuality, then illegal, was revealed by the government by publicizing his secret diaries, which likely defeated a movement for clemency. He was executed at prison by hanging. |
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