Promotional Information

A masterpiece from one of the great contemporary American writers.

About the Author

John Irving published his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968. He has been nominated for a National Book Award three times - winning once, in 1980, for the novel The World According to Garp. He also received an O. Henry Award in 1981 for the short story 'Interior Space'. In 1992, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules - a film with seven Academy Award nominations. In 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His most recent novel is Last Night in Twisted River.

Reviews

I believe it to be a work of genius... because of its absolutely irrepressible flow of invention and suggestion, expressed in some of the most fascinating prose written in fiction today. Originality has distinguished all Mr Irving's books, but in A Prayer For Owen Meany it achieves a new pitch and a new profundity
*Independent*

Marvellously funny... What better entertainment is there than a serious book which makes you laugh?
*Spectator*

So extraordinary, so original, and so enriching
*The Washington Post*

May justly join the classic American list
*Observer*

A heartbreaking masterpiece of a novel... tremendously ambitious and fiendishly clever
*Sunday Express*

Intelligent, exhilarating and darkly comic Dickensian in scope. Quite stunning
*Los Angeles Times*

So extraordinary, so original, and so enriching
*The Washington Post*

Although he is convincing in his appraisal of the tragedy of Vietnam and in his religious philosophizing, ``Irving's storytelling skills have gone seriously astray in this contrived, preachy, tedious tale of the eponymous Owen Meany, a latter-day prophet and Christ-like figure who dies a martyr after having inspired true Christian belief in the narrator Johnny Wheelwright,'' warned PW . Author tour. (May)

I believe it to be a work of genius... because of its absolutely irrepressible flow of invention and suggestion, expressed in some of the most fascinating prose written in fiction today. Originality has distinguished all Mr Irving's books, but in A Prayer For Owen Meany it achieves a new pitch and a new profundity * Independent *
Marvellously funny... What better entertainment is there than a serious book which makes you laugh? * Spectator *
So extraordinary, so original, and so enriching * The Washington Post *
May justly join the classic American list * Observer *
A heartbreaking masterpiece of a novel... tremendously ambitious and fiendishly clever -- Dominic Holland * Sunday Express *