CATHERINE STEEL relishes a compelling novel about Augustus’s right hand man, but misses the politics, the cultural shifts, and more detail about his restoration of Rome
Josafat
by Prudenci Bertrana
(Francis Boutle, £8.99)
WHEN Josafat was first published in 1906, it caused outrage in Catalonia. A tale of lust and lunacy, it was Prudenci Bertrana’s response to accusations that he had penned a morally dubious novella.
Bertrana (1867-1941) was born into a family with land and property in Girona and Esparra and affiliated to the right-wing Carlist variant of the Catholic church.
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