A beautiful novel in the old, glorious tradition of heroic storytelling.

'A masterpiece'.

'A tale that assumes epic proportions and gathers speed to rush to a spectacular climax'.

It has that insiders feelings for man, the oppressed, labouring animal ... you might find in Tolstoy, Hardy or Silone. The author never loses his freshness, an ability to pick on details as though see for the first time.

Yasham Kemal achieves the Russian quality - an intimacy of detail which makes his etching indelible, more selected, and therefore more obvious than life ... the book is a small, sharp, moving epic of Turkish soil

'Here again is that directness and that fierce poetry which one knew in the old heroic stories, and a hero in whom one can have such faith and trust that one can bear to read his torments knowing that he is strong enough to endure them. This is a beautiful and passionate book. It has been most ably translated'.

One of the great modern epics

[Kemal was] trying to find, to create, in his own country, a language for millions and millions of people whom no one's ever heard of, whom no one has ever spoken for, and who cannot speak

'A remarkable novel, reminiscent of Hardy in its power and scope'.

Marvellous

[Adam Johnson] serves up six sinewy stories that shock and surprise in his edgy, inviting Fortune Smiles . . . compulsively readable.

[A] bold and deeply wise collection

Startlingly, blazingly original.

[A] riveting collection of short stories ... darkly imagined, slightly surreal

Exhilarating ... His mastery of setting simply wowed me.

Marked by the conflicts of heart and mind, and the exuberant quality of its compassionate prose.

Compulsively readable ... Johnson serves up six sinewy stories that shock and surprise.

A rare combination of inventiveness, intellectual pyrotechnics and emotional sophistication ... these stories are treasures.

Bittersweet, elegant, full of ward-won wisdom: this is no ordinary book either.

Hefty and memorable ...the stories provide one of the truest satisfactions of reading: the opportunity to sing into worlds we otherwise know little or nothing about.

Terrific. Shows exactly why Johnson is rated as one of the hottest writers of his generation.

The perfect antidote to Trump.

This book is a compelling study of the relationship between artist and spectator, and how suffering feeds into art, and he’s made of it a bravura performance… Extraordinary.

A haunting, intense and Man Booker International prize-winning novel from a great writer.

Incredibly fast paced, and the dialogue comes at you like a machine gun… It is powerful in its own right.

Abrasive, unexpected and eventually heartbreaking, it is a masterclass in characterisation and structure, and it beat off some exceptionally strong competition to win the prize… A Horse Walks into a Bar is quite unlike any other Grossman book except in one important respect: it’s another masterpiece.

Excellent.

Pitch-perfect black comedy