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The Colour of Blood

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The Colour of Blood
First UK edition
AuthorBrian Moore
LanguageEnglish
Genrepolitical thriller
PublisherJonathan Cape (UK)
McClelland & Stewart (Canada)
Dutton (US)
Publication date
1987
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint
Pages182
ISBN978-0-224-02513-3
OCLC18192603
Preceded byBlack Robe (1985) 
Followed byLies of Silence (1990) 

The Colour of Blood, published in 1987, is a political thriller by Northern Irish-Canadian novelist Brian Moore about Stephen Bem, a Cardinal in an unnamed East European country who is in conflict with the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy[1] and finds himself caught in the middle of an escalating revolution.

Description

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Clancy Sigal, writing in The New York Times, described the novel as a study of faith under pressure: "Almost in thriller form, it is also a wise and illuminating meditation on the labyrinthine forces at work in a Roman Catholic Communist country like Poland (where Mr. Moore served with a United Nations relief group after the war)."[2]

According to critic Jo O'Donoghue, The Colour of Blood deals with the problem of how the modern Catholic Church "is to live in tandem with the secular authority".[3]

In her biography of Moore, Patricia Craig describes The Colour of Blood as a protest against intolerance, "with fanatical Catholicism presented as a destructive force. At the same time the Cardinal himself stands for another kind of Catholicism: moderate and incorruptible, and not unaccommodating of theological uncertainties".[4]

Awards

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It won the Sunday Express Book of the Year award in 1987 and was also nominated for the Booker Prize.[5]

References

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