FROM THE BOOKER PRIZEWINNING AUTHOR OF GIRL WOMAN OTHERRECIPIENT OF THE WOMENS PRIZE OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION AWARD Wildly entertaining deeply affecting Ali SmithLondinium AD 211 Zuleika is a modern girl living in an ancient world Shes a backalley firecracker a scruffy Nubian babe with tangled hair and bare feet and shes just been married off a fat old Roman Life as a teenage bride is no joke but Zeeks is a born survivor She knows this city like the back of her hand its slave girls and drag queens its shining villas and rotting slums She knows how to get by Until one day she catches the eye of the most powerful man on earth the Roman Emperor and her trouble really startsSilvertongued and merryeyed this is a story in song and verse a joyful mashup of today and yesterday Kaleidoscoping distant past and vivid present The Emperors Babe asks what it means to be a woman and to survive in this thrilling brutal breathless world
