Manorbier author Paul Griffiths releases his second novel this month - The Tomb Guardians.

Paul’s first novel ‘Mr. Beethoven’ about how a writer might go about interpreting the life of one of the most well-known composers who ever lived, was shortlisted for the prestigious Goldsmiths Prize 2020; and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

In his latest, published by Henningham Family Press - ‘The Tomb Guardians’ awake to find the tomb empty and one of their numbers missing. Their conversation overlaps with another – an anguished lecturer and friend exploring the Renaissance Master portraits they occupy. One looks back at the dawn of the Reformation, the other thrashes out an excuse.

Praise for Paul’s latest novel has come from Rowan Williams, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury.

“You’re not likely to encounter another book like this in a hurry. Brilliantly (and wittily) weaving together art history, psychology and theology, it invites us to think about imagination and truth, presence and absence, and the way in which human beings manage to avoid noticing what is significant - but not quite successfully enough to make them comfortable,” he commented.

Philip Terry, novelist and Head of the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies at the University of Essex, also had the following to say about the book: “As two people quietly discuss Bernhard Strigel’s paintings of the guardians at the tomb, their voices blend and clash with the panicked voices of the guards themselves. A stunning short novel.”

The Tomb Guardians is published with the usual Henningham Family Press attention to detail, including an original drawing on the cover, which is printed on ochre paper by Gmund, one of the finest paper mills in Europe, operating close to where the painter Bernhard Strigel lived and worked five hundred years ago.

The novel can be ordered through all good bookshops or via the publisher.