Bruce Pascoe’s Imperial Harvest begins with cruelty. The one-eyed, one-armed horseman Yen Se loses his wife and child to an inferno born from the Great Khan’s bloodthirsty ambition; Yen Se is to be the horse trainer for the Khan’s invasion of Europe and the Khan has ensured that he is left with nothing except this grim duty. As the Mongol horde tears west with relentless speed, Yen Se becomes an unwilling accomplice and solemn witness to the savage horrors of conquest, embarking on a strange journey that steadily takes him further and further from home. From Poland’s Oder river to the cities of Venice and Seville, the looming presence of the Khan fades away to reveal Pascoe’s more universal concern: the bitter desire to ‘take up the sword’ and conquer that is seemingly lodged within the human heart.

Thick with historical texture and mythic tone, Imperial Harvest is an odyssey of sorts, propelled by a momentum that lurches between warlike urgency and peaceful contemplation, reflecting the rhythms of a world bound by conflict. Yen Se is a broken man fighting to hold onto empathy within a maelstrom of disillusionment and violence and acts as the perfect vessel for this journey and the questions that Pascoe asks as it unfolds. Yet often it is Pascoe’s cast of secondary characters who are most responsible for the story’s compelling vibrancy. From preternaturally wise children to boundlessly kind millers, the companions on Yen Se’s journey imbue it with a meaning beyond mere wandering and often provide the most insightful reflections on the story’s themes. These reflections often take the form of dense, philosophical passages of dialogue, but they nevertheless feel at home alongside Yen Se’s pensive narration.

With Imperial Harvest, Pascoe has created an ambitious and entrancing meditation on violence, as historically specific as it is universal, where moments of peace are made doubly touching by the violence that surrounds them.