Name Paul Kastenellos | Role Author | |
Born May 24, 1938Queens, New York, United States ( 1938-05-24 ) Occupation novelist, news librarian, reporter Books Antonina: A Byzantine Slut, Count No Man Happy: A Byzantine Fantasy | ||
Paul Kastenellos is a nom de plume of Vincent O'Reilly, the author of two novels of the Byzantine Empire: Antonina: A Byzantine Slut about the maligned wife of the famed sixth century Roman general Flavius Belisarius, and Count No Man Happy: A Byzantine Fantasy, which recounts the sad life of the Emperor Constantine VI who was blinded by his own mother in the eighth century.
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Background
Before publishing, Kastenellos was briefly a newsman and then a news archivist for forty years, creating and maintaining a system to catalog news films and tapes. His concise style reflects his years of writing and abstracting and a reluctance to stereotype either contemporary or historical figures as simply good or evil.
He also studied the medieval Byzantine Empire, a passion from his college years in the nineteen-fifties. The Byzantine Empire was the continuation of the Roman in the east after the western part of the empire was dismembered by barbarian invaders: particularly Vandals, Franks, and Goths. As such it continued to rule from the Balkans, Greece, and modern Turkey, to the Holy Land and Egypt. His interest in the Byzantines was revived after visiting Constantinople and Turkey, Greece, and Italy during the '80s and '90s and he decided to devote himself to clearing the name of Antonina and bringing to the attention of modern readers of fiction the history and sophistication of this neglected successor state of Rome. In both books the author tries to stay as true to the historical record as is possible within the framework of a novel.