The Convent

The Convent

Summary

Those whom God wishes to destroy he first makes mad...

The convent of Our Lady of Mercy stands alone in an uninhabited part of the Spanish sierra. Its inhabitants are devoted to God, to solitude and silence; six women cut off from the world they've chosen to leave behind.

Everything changes on the day that a suitcase punctured with air-holes is discovered on the convent steps. Soon Mother Superior Maria Ines finds that the box and its contents are to have consequences beyond her imagining, and that even in her carefully protected sanctuary she is unable to keep the world, or her past, at bay.

Reviews

  • Unexpectedly haunting, its details catching like splinters in that part of the imagination that responds to pure storytelling
    Times Literary Supplement

About the author

Panos Karnezis

Panos Karnezis was born in Greece in 1967 and moved to England in 1992. He was awarded an MA in Creative Writing by the University of East Anglia. He is the author of a highly praised collection of stories, Little Infamies, and three novels, The Maze, which was shortlisted for the 2004 Whitbread First Novel award, The Birthday Party and The Convent.
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