Publisher Description

James A. Michener, the Pulitzer Prize–winning master of the historical saga, returns to his beloved Spain with this magical novel of Seville at Easter time, a season of splendid pageantry, thrilling bullfights, deep piety—and the possibility of miracles. An American sports journalist has come to the city to report on efforts by the rancher Don Cayetano Mota to revive his once-proud line of bulls. Not only does Mota pray to the Virgin Mary, but he takes on herculean acts of devotion during the solemn celebrations of Holy Week. With treacherous enemies waiting in the ring, Mota's struggle taps deeply into life's mysteries, shaking the newspaperman's skepticism and opening his eyes to the wonder of faith. Featuring illustrations by the American bullfighter John Fulton, Miracle in Seville is Michener at his most dazzling.
 
Praise for Miracle in Seville
 
"Eloquent . . . a vintage demonstration of Michener storytelling . . . What emerges most strongly is the real admiration and awe that lovers of bullfighting feel for the toro bravo."—The New York Times Book Review
 
"Compelling . . . told with an understanding of and appreciation for a culture where matadors are artists and miracles are possible."—Chicago Tribune

Author Biography

James A. Michener was one of the world's most popular writers, the author of more than forty books of fiction and nonfiction, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Tales of the South Pacific, the bestselling novels The Source, Hawaii, Alaska, Chesapeake, Centennial, Texas, Caribbean, and Caravans, and the memoir The World Is My Home. Michener served on the advisory council to NASA and the International Broadcast Board, which oversees the Voice of America. Among dozens of awards and honors, he received America's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1977, and an award from the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 1983 for his commitment to art in America. Michener died in 1997 at the age of ninety.

Review

"Eloquent . . . a vintage demonstration of Michener storytelling . . . What emerges most strongly is the real admiration and awe that lovers of bullfighting feel for the toro bravo."—The New York Times Book Review
 
"Compelling . . . told with an understanding of and appreciation for a culture where matadors are artists and miracles are possible."—Chicago Tribune

Review Quote

"Eloquent . . . a vintage demonstration of Michener storytelling . . . What emerges most strongly is the real admiration and awe that lovers of bullfighting feel for the toro bravo." -- The New York Times Book Review

Excerpt from Book

FOR TWO GOOD REASONS I did not cable New York a true account of what transpired during that spring feria in Seville twenty years ago. First of all, I could not decide if I had seen what I thought I saw. Did it really happen, or was it the product of a mind made overactive by the feverish festivities of Holy Week? Since I kept my writing headquarters in the gracious Alfonso Trece Hotel, I was not far from that famous cigarette factory where Carmen with the rose between her teeth bewitched the Spanish captain sent to guard her. I could distinctly hear her singing at dusk when I passed her factory, so I might also have witnessed other miracles. Even today I cannot be sure of what happened during that vital, spiritual and social three-week fair the people of Seville call their feria. The second reason for my duplicity was more simple, but devastatingly effective in keeping me silent. If I had reported all of what I had seen to my magazine, my boss would have cabled back: ''Lay off that Spanish wine,'' and the conscientious woman who handled my manuscripts, removing the gaucheries in my prose, would have wired: ''Stop your medieval dreaming. Miracles don''t happen in the twentieth century.'' I could not afford such ridicule. Now, reflecting calmly two decades later, I suspect that what I experienced was some shadowy glimpse of a truth we men do not like to acknowledge: that women possess an arcane power to influence men, making them see visions and influencing them to perform acts they would not normally commit. I''d struggled through a messy divorce and was already contemplating remarrying, so my thoughts were concentrated on the relationships between women and men. Was I translating my own confusion about women into universal truth regarding their potency? Certainly in Seville I witnessed a battle between two powerful women, and to me they remain as forceful as they were when they involved me in their combat. I worked in those days for a lively magazine called World Sport, which owed its success to a belief that sports-hungry American men would buy a journal that kept them informed about what was happening in the sporting life of countries they''d never seen. One of my more successful stories had been a riveting account of the brave aborigines on Pentecost Island in the New Hebrides who climbed to the top of very tall trees, then leaped headfirst down to earth supported only by vines lashed about their waist and ankles. Make the vines too long, you dashed your brains out. Make them too short and you dangled in midair, an inept fool who would be ridiculed. Make them just right, and you walked away a champion among men. Since I specialized in bizarre stories, it was my good luck to have seen much of the world''s playful nonsense, such as the performance of Argentine gauchos working wonders on the pampas with their bolo ropes, which they could twist perfectly around the rear legs of a galloping horse, or the daring fellows who canoed down the Yukon River during the turbulent spring floods. My editor had given me the Seville assignment one morning in March: ''Shenstone, we''ve decided to send you to Spain for a six-pager on a little-known aspect of bullfighting.'' When I objected that our magazine had carried numerous takes on that sport as it operated in Peru, Mexico, Portugal and, of course, Spain, the boss rebutted me: ''Sure, Hemingway did that series for Life on the summer-long duel between Ordonez and his brother-in-law Domingu

Details