Country: A Novel - Couverture rigide

“A propulsive, blood-flecked homage to the “Iliad” told against the backdrop of a fragile truce in 1996...Hughes’s story proceeds at a breakneck cinematic pace.” (New York Times Book Review)

“A lively, convincing demotic that captures an Irish idiomatic flow and an echo of Homer’s formalities and hexametric lines. It begs to be read aloud.” (The Times (UK))

“The language is enough to keep you enthralled . . . a violent pounding demotic as memorable in its way as Homer’s hexameter.” (The Guardian)

“A bold, imaginative second novel” (The Spectator)

“Energetic . . . an ingenious refitting that illuminates both conflicts.” (Guardian, Books of the Year 2018)

“Country explodes with verbal invention, rapid juxtaposition, brutality and fun . . . Hughes’s linguistic dexterity, his ear for dialogue, his understanding of character, the energy of his prose.“ (Times Literary Supplement (London))

“Reading this book is like sitting in the pub listening to a good friend tell you stories. It does what only the best retellings can and makes you see the myth anew.” (Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under)

“This is a hard, rigorous and necessary book which grinds out its beauty as the song cycles of empire and resistance fall silent, choked in their own blood.” (Irish Times)

“A brutal and gripping thriller in its own right . . . a consistently engrossing read, written in Ulster-flavoured prose as rich and evocative as you would expect from a professional thespian.” (Irish Independent)

“Consistently thrilling . . . By enlisting the visceral power of The Iliad to illustrate the violence of the Troubles . . . Hughes has written a striking, memorable book.” (Literary Review)