Ballad of a Happy Immigrant

Dec 27, 2025 4:37 PM

Author:Leo Boix

'It isn't often that one encounters a sensibility so interested in our world - and so compelling in its powers of attentiveness. Leo Boix's poetry has a wide tilt and scope. It sings the doors open' Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic

'They are sailors from another century, stalwart / captured on daguerrotype, casually masculine, tender of heart.'

In the middle of the last century, the SS General Pueyrredón from Buenos Aires deposits Leo Boix's paternal grandfather on English soil for the first time. In the two years he spends there, he acquires a taste for his new homeland: from taking his tea white - muy blanco - to plunging into unfamiliar sensual worlds.

So begins the poet's own journey, arriving in the United Kingdom as a young queer man. Ballad of a Happy Immigrant tells of the life he makes there: a dazzling collection of what it means to live, love and write between two cultures and traditions. Effortlessly moving between the English imagination and Spanish language, it is a boundless exploration of otherness and home, and the personal transformation that follows between 'loss / and a life / that starts anew.'

*A Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice*

Reviews

In Ballad of a Happy Immigrant Leo Boix demonstrates the power of a poem to move not just the mind but the body. These are supple, evocative, sensuous poems that ripple with life from a poet who can do in two languages what many of us struggle to do in one

—— Kayo Chingonyi

Here, dear readers, you will find charms and bees, crows and legends, much silence and even more truth-seeking. You will find immigrant's songs, and love whispers to the planet, all set to music that is as inimitable as it's lush. It isn't often that one encounters a sensibility so interested in our world - and so compelling in its powers of attentiveness. Leo Boix's poetry has a wide tilt and scope. It sings the doors open

—— Ilya Kaminsky

As well as having a subtle mastery of forms, Boix is playfully inventive

—— Rishi Dastidar , Guardian

Boix... has attempted something that few poets dare and even fewer achieve - to write in an adopted language... [he] handles words like a beachcomber, relishing them and experimenting with combinations and visual arrangements

—— Angus Reid , Morning Star

A compelling tale uncovering a world of secrets, injustice and, for the lucky few, escape

—— Anne Griffin , author of When All is Said

Shimmering, beguiling and ruthless. A fizzing and assured debut

—— Colin Barrett

Sprawling and encompassing so many worlds, it's utterly gripping. Excellent.

—— Sophie White, author of Corpsing

Love this . . . a really fantastic read

—— Sinéad Moriarty

This page-turner is the debut offering from Cork writer O'Connell and the sign of great things to come from him

—— Irish Examiner

The opening chapter grabbed me right away . . . I'm gripped

—— The Art House, 96FM

An instantly gripping page-turner

—— Sunday Independent Life Magazine

From the first pages I knew I was in for a treat and the book delivered, over and over again

—— Books Ireland

A cast of characters you think you will know, trapped in a world you definitely won't. Illuminating, claustrophobic, addictive

—— Ciaran McMenamin

Wonderful depictions of life in Dubai and an intriguing, interwoven plot

—— Zoë Miller, author of The Perfect Sister

A literary thriller set in Dubai... O'Connell's debut does mainly reinforce the notion that expats are terribly entitled people but there's nuance in the few characters desperately seeking a better, more meaningful life.

—— Guardian

An enjoyable and unconventional thriller... readers will be hearing more from Jamie O'Connell, I've no doubt.

—— Sunday Times

An instantly gripping page-turner set around a death in Dubai.

—— Sunday Independent

Stunning... a tour de force.

—— Pat Kenny, The Pat Kenny Show (Newstalk)

Shout out Ciaran on the new book, everyone go cop that and take in the gems - real life issues being addressed. It's important to know that even though the book's called Cut Short your life don't have to be cut short, as long as you're breathing you got opportunities if you just focus and stay consistent

—— AM, rapper

This book strongly gives a voice to the voiceless . . . essential reading

—— Kenny Allstar, DJ

Takes us to the heart of London's street culture . . . more necessary than ever

—— Alistair Fraser , TLS

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