Author:Charles Tomlinson,William Carlos Williams

In his work as a physician, Williams had learnt the skill of objective observation which he applied to his poetry, examining, as he said, 'the particular to discover the universal'. Marked by a vernacular American speech and direct observation of the landscape and people of his native New Jersey, his poetry explores the 'raw merging of American pastoral and urban squalor. Emotionally restrained but rich in sensory experience, the poems were written according to the guiding concept: 'no ideas but in things' and those 'things', a red wheelbarrow, a group of trees, a river, convey the local and the particular with a vivid intensity.
Tropper's novel is one to savour ... Consistently funny, full of sharp observations, sophisticated. You won't have heard of Jonathan Tropper before, but keep an eye on him. He's good
—— The MirrorA beautifully crafted book of enormous heart, humility, wit, honesty and vulnerablilty. Utterly magnificent
—— Augusten Burroughs, author of Running With ScissorsAn immensely readable tale of success, revenge and small-town disappointment
—— Marie ClaireSublime talent. . . this is history with a human face and a fanciful soul
—— Good Book GuideThe funniest crime novelist to put pen to paper
—— Evening StandardA transcendentally harmonious and compassionate work
—— Times Literary SupplementA surprisingly tender book... Amid the terror a classic story about love sneaks through: love lost, love imagined, love morphed into madness
—— New York Times Book ReviewBeautifully written... It puts a human face on the suffering inflicted by the Taliban... Disturbing and mesmerizing, The Swallows of Kabul will stay with you long after you've finished it
—— San Francisco ChronicleRiveting... Spare, taut, and pristinely clear prose... An uncanny knack for making moral tension palpable... Extraordinarily moving
—— Philadelphia InquirerA novel very much in the tradition of Albert Camus, not only in its humanism and concern with the consequences of individual choices but also in its determination to bear witness to the absurdities of daily life... [A] chilling portrait of fundamentalism run amok and its fallout on ordinary people
—— New York Times






