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Apuleius's
The Golden Ass, one of a handful of extant ancient novels, remains relatively unknown. Peter Singer, the renowned philosopher and author of the modern classic
Animal Liberation, remedies this neglect, bringing the comic tale back to the wider reading public. With a version stripped of the many tales extraneous to the main narrative, Singer exposes the core of the text: the adventures of the man-turned-animal, Lucius.
Singer has teamed with Apuleius scholar and translator Ellen Finkelpearl to create a delightful rollicking story in which we follow the adventures of this cocky young man transformed into a donkey, through his travails, erotic adventures and enlightenment. With Singer's vision, superbly illustrated by prize-winning artists Anya and and Varya Kendel, this newly rendered canonical work is bound to be enjoyed by anyone who cares about human and animal life. Afterwords by Singer and Finkelpearl assess the significance of
The Golden Ass for our thoughts about animals, ancient and modern.
About the author
Apuleius (124–170 CE) was an African novelist, philosopher, and rhetorician.Peter Singer, an Australian philosopher, is currently Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He is best known for Animal Liberation, first published in 1975 and widely considered to be the founding statement of the animal rights movement; and for The Life You Can Save, which led him to found the charity of the same name. His other books include Practical Ethics, The Most Good You Can Do, and the two books co-authored with Katarzyna de Lazari- Radek. In 2005, Time magazine named him one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People.Ellen Finkelpearl is the Helen Chandler Garland Professor of Ancient Studies at Scripps College, and a scholar of Apuleius.Anna and Varvara Kendel are twin sisters who graduated from the Stieglitz Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, and do illustrations together. Working with the best Russian publishers, they have illustrated more than seven books and won prizes at international art competitions.
Summary
Peter Singer has breathed new life into Apuleius’s The Golden Ass—a hilarious, bawdy tale and one of the earliest novels—accentuating its remarkable empathy for animals.
