"For the first time in his life Gulliver felt ashamed of himself and his fellow-humans."
Gulliver is a travel-hungry and adventurous ship's doctor, who has the odd misfortune of being ship-wrecked four times in as many voyages. Through Jonathan Coe's expert retelling of Swift's famous satire about our human hubris and desires, today's young readers are swept along as Gulliver finds himself a giant among tiny humans in Lilliput; a tiny human among giants in Brobdignag; on the flying island of Laputa, with its most impractical intellectuals; and finally in the land of the Houyhnhnms, talking horses who think precious little of human "Yahoos".
Jonathan Coe (b. 1961) is a novelist, author of children's books and biographer. He was awarded a doctorate for his thesis on Henry Fielding's Tom Jones at Warwick University, and during that time also completed his first novel, The Accidental Woman (1987). He has won prestigious literary prizes in the UK and France, among others for his Thatcher-era satire What a Carve Up and The Rotters' Club. In 2004 he was made Chevalier l'Ordre des Arts and des Lettres.