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David Anthony Durham Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

David Anthony Durham
Gudrun Johnston

David Anthony Durham

David Anthony Durham Biography

David Anthony Durham (born 1969) is an American novelist, author of historical fiction and fantasy. The child of parents of Caribbean ancestry, he grew up in Maryland. He has also lived in the United Kingdom and France, where he wrote his first novel.

Durham's first novel, Gabriel's Story, centered on African American settlers in the American West. Walk Through Darkness followed a runaway slave during the tense times leading up to the American Civil War. Pride of Carthage focused on Hannibal Barca of Ancient Carthage and his war with the Roman Republic.

He has won two awards from the American Library Association, and his novels have been translated into eight foreign languages. Gabriel's Story, Walk Through Darkness and Acacia: The War with the Mein are all in development as feature films. Durham's most recently released book, Acacia: The Sacred Band, concludes his epic fantasy Acacia Trilogy.

He was the MacLean Distinguished Visiting Writer at The Colorado College and was an Associate Professor at Cal State University, Fresno and an adjunct professor at Hampshire College. He won the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Fiction Award in 1992, the 2002 Legacy Award for Debut Fiction and was a Finalist for the 2006 Legacy Award for Fiction. In 2009, he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

He currently teaches for the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing.

David Anthony Durham's website

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Interview

David Anthony Durham explains his interest in Hannibal, the protagonist of his first novel, Pride of Carthage; and refutes the historical concept of him as a brutish barbarian.

I met the protagonist of Pride of Carthage while I was still a boy in elementary school. I'm not sure just who it was that brought tales of Hannibal Barca into my house, but whoever that forgotten relative or family friend was I owe them thanks. He or she filled my head with images of armies riding elephants over snow covered mountains, of great battles and triumphant heroes. I was fascinated by the exoticness of Hannibal's war, by the bravery and barbarity of ancient battle, by the notion of such a titanic clash of African and European powers. It's the first instance I can remember of being enthralled by a distant historical event and by the persons who featured prominently in it. I never forgot this initial enthusiasm.

It was with considerable excitement, then, that I began to write the story of the Second Punic War several years ago. Beginning the novel I was aware that the same things that attracted me to it where the things that might do me in. How would I capture the polyglot diversity of Carthage's army? How would I write of an event like at Cannae, when seventy thousand Romans were cut, stabbed, trampled and suffocated to death in the dusty heat of summer afternoon? How could I convey the ...

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Books by this Author

Books by David Anthony Durham at BookBrowse
The Sacred Band jacket The Other Lands jacket Acacia jacket The Pride of Carthage jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for David Anthony Durham but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Steven Barnes

    Steven Barnes

    Steven Barnes is an American science fiction writer, lecturer, creative consultant, and human performance technician.

    He has written several novels and teleplays. He has written several episodes of The Outer Limits and ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Pride of Carthage

    Try:
    Lion's Blood
    by Steven Barnes

  • Bernard Cornwell

    Bernard Cornwell

    Bernard Cornwell was born in London in 1944 – a 'warbaby' – whose father was a Canadian airman and mother in Britain's Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

    He was adopted by a family in Essex who belonged to a ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Pride of Carthage

    Try:
    The Last Kingdom
    by Bernard Cornwell

We recommend 4 similar authors

View all 4 Read-Alikes

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