**'Witty, poetic, clairvoyant' John Updike **The Reverend Timothy Fortune, ex-clerk of the Hornsey branch of Lloyds Bank, has found his vocation: to convert the inhabitants of the remote tropical island of Fanua to Christianity. Even when everyone except for a young boy called Lueli remains indiffer...

**'Witty, poetic, clairvoyant' John Updike **The Reverend Timothy Fortune, ex-clerk of the Hornsey branch of Lloyds Bank, has found his vocation: to convert the inhabitants of the remote tropical island of Fanua to Christianity. Even when everyone except for a young boy called Lueli remains indifferent to his preaching, Mr Fortune's good spirits cannot be dampened - until one day his faith is put to a terrible test.

'This quizzical tale is so intensely moving' Gillian Beer,* New Statesman 'Original, elegant and hypnotically strange' Miranda Seymour, The New York Times *

'Sylvia Townsend Warner pursues the psychology of the story with beautiful accuracy' John Carey