Ben Kane

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Ben Kane (2019)

Ben Kane (* 1970 in Kenya ) is an Irish writer who specializes in historical novels with a focus on the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire .

life and work

Kane was born in Kenya in 1970 because his father was a veterinarian there. When Kane was seven years old, his parents returned to their native Ireland. Kane studied veterinary medicine at University College Dublin and worked as a veterinarian in England from 1996. He has always been interested in antiquity: Numerous journeys, including a trip around the world, have led him to a. to Turkmenistan and the countries that are today associated with the Silk Road . Kane lives with his family in North Somerset, England and is a full-time writer.

Book series known to a wider audience include The Forgotten Legion Trilogy, the Spartacus volumes, and the Hannibal and Rome series. Most recently, Kane worked on the series The Eagles of Rome ( Varus Battle and campaigns of Tiberius and Germanicus ).

Six of his novels were Sunday Times bestsellers, and his books have been translated into more than ten countries, including Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece and the Netherlands.

In 2013, Kane and friends marched along Hadrian's Wall in full Roman legionary gear as part of a charity campaign ; This raised a total of £ 19,000 in donations that went to associations such as Combat Stress and Doctors Without Borders . A year later, Kane wandered, again as a legionary, through Italy, from Capua to Rome. The documentary entitled The Road to Rome was made during this time .

literature

The Forgotten Legion Trilogy

  • The Forgotten Legion (2008); German The Forgotten Legion , Bastei Lübbe 2016, transl. Holger Hanowell.

The main characters of the novel are Romulus, who is sold as a boy to the gladiator school, his twin sister Fabiola (the siblings are house slaves of a merchant in Rome), who is forced into prostitution, Tarquinius, an Etruscan haruspex (seer) and Brennus, a Gauls who is one of the best gladiators in Rome. The threads of the plot pull the male protagonists together, and in the end Romulus, Tarquinius and Brennus belong to Crassus' army and become prisoners of the Parthians .

One of the settings of this historical novel is the battle of Carrhae against the Parthians, 53 BC. BC, in which the Romans under the leadership of Marcus Licinius Crassus experienced a devastating defeat. Some of the survivors were taken prisoner by the Parthians, as Plutarch reports. Researchers are still investigating the question of whether the fate of those captured legionnaires (ie the soldiers of that Forgotten Legion) can be traced. It was scientifically investigated whether descendants of the legionnaires could possibly be found in the village of Liqian in today's China, since people with light skin, blond hair, blue or green eyes, a characteristic of the Caucasian phenotype, live in this area. In the foreword to The Forgotten Legion , Kane mentions the village of Liqian: "The origin of the name is not certain, but scholars believe that the first settlement was founded between 79 BC and 5 AD under the name Li-jien, which means "Rome" in ancient Chinese.

  • The Silver Eagle (2009); German The Silver Eagle (Bastei Lübbe, 2016). Translated by Holger Hanowell.
  • The Road to Rome (2010); German The Bloody Way ; (Bastei Lübbe, 2017). Translated by Holger Hanowell.

The Hannibal series

  • Hannibal: Enemy of Rome (2011)
  • Hannibal: The Patrol (short story, 2013); only as an e-book
  • Hannibal: Fields of Blood (2013)
  • Hannibal: Clouds of War (2014)

The Spartacus series

  • Spartacus: The Gladiator (2012)
  • Spartacus: Rebellion (2012)

The Eagles of Rome series

  • The Shrine (short story, 2015); only as an e-book
  • Eagles at War (2015); German Battle of the Eagles (Bastei Lübbe, 2018). Translated by Holger Hanowell.
  • Hunting the Eagles (2016); German Revenge of the Eagles (Bastei Lübbe, 2018). Translated by Holger Hanowell.
  • Eagles in the Storm (2017); German Sturm der Adler (Bastei Lübbe, 2019). Translated by Holger Hanowell.
  • A Day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii (2014); Kane wrote a chapter

The Clash of Emire series

  • Clash of Empire (2019); German battle of empires (Bastei Lübbe, 2019). Translated by Dietmar Schmidt.
  • The Falling Sword (2020); German The Last Sword (Bastei Lübbe, 2020). Translated by Dietmar Schmidt.

Single volume

  • Lionheart (2020);

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography at: fantasybookreview.co.uk, accessed May 26, 2016
  2. ↑ Ben Kane. What it's like to march as a Roman soldier . From: telegraph.co.uk April 20, 2015, accessed May 26, 2016
  3. ↑ Ian McKellen was able to be won as a speaker for the documentary: [1]
  4. ↑ http://www.20min.ch/wissen/history/story/14043484 The Lost Legion; DNA testing in a Chinese village.
  5. ↑ http://www.zeit.de/2013/18/china-dorf-liqian-roemische-vorfahren cf. also China's fight for Rome online on ZEIT.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kane, Ben
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish medic and writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Kenya