Russell Hoban's masterpiece, a post-apocalyptic vision of humanity stripped back to its essentials
On his death in 2011, The Times described Russell Hoban as 'perhaps
the most consistently strange writer of the late 20th century'. He
thought and wrote in an extraordinary range of genres, becoming
first a bestselling writer of children's books, particularly the
immortal Frances stories and his first novel, The Mouse and His
Child (1968). After its publication he continued to write for
children (most notably perhaps the Captain Najork books with
Quentin Blake and The Marzipan Pig), but focussed most of his
energies on a sequence of wonderful novels, which began with The
Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz (1973) and ended with Angelica
Lost and Found (2010). He also wrote the libretto for Harrison
Birtwistle's opera The Second Mrs Kong (1994).
His novels were wildly various, but share his obsession with
objects, animals, specific works of art and pieces of music, his
love of words and sense of humour. Penguin Modern Classics
publishes his first eight novels- The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and
Jachin-Boaz, Kleinzeit, Turtle Diary, Riddley Walker, Pilgermann,
The Medusa Frequency, Fremder and Mr Rinyo-Clacton's Offer.
Russell Hoban has brought off an extraordinary feat of imagination
and of style ... funny, terrible, haunting and unsettling, this
book is a masterpiece.
*The Observer*
You are syntactically and emotionally and politically absolutely in
the book's spell. The way it changes is unbelievable; it is a
living thing.
*Max Porter*
Extraordinary... a hero with Huck Finn's heart, lighting by El
Greco and jokes by Punch and Judy... Fiercely imagined and
intensely ponderable.
*New York Times Book Review*
Suffused with melancholy and wonder, beautifully written, Riddley
Walker is a novel people will be reading for a long, long time.
*Washington Post*
This is what literature is meant to be.
*Anthony Burgess*
The strongest, most desolate and bewildered voice in modern
fiction. In the mental silence that followed the closing of the
last page, I wanted to applaud, through tears.
*Cosmopolitan*
The book has an evangelical effect on people ... Riddley is an
absorbing character, Hoban's language has a fantastic, rough poetry
and the post-apocalyptic world is chilling and convincing.
*The Observer*
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