Book review: The Little Snake, by AL Kennedy

As demonstrated by the recently concluded Hogarth Shakespeare series, in which eight contemporary authors were invited to write novels inspired by some of the Bard’s best-loved plays, using an existing work of literature as a jumping-off point for a new one can either work brilliantly (as in Edward St Aubyn’s formidably intelligent update of King Lear) or hardly at all (Jo Nesbo’s take on Macbeth). Happily, AL Kennedy’s The Little Snake, written to mark the 75th anniversary of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, falls unconditionally into the former category.