International IMPAC Dublin Literary Awards Best Novel
Costa Book Awards Best First Novel (nominee)
Forty years in the future. The once-great city of Bohane on the west coast of Ireland is on its knees, infested by vice and split along tribal lines. There are the posh parts of town, but it is in the slums and backstreets of Smoketown, the tower blocks of the Northside Rises and on the eerie bogs of Big Nothin' that Bohane really lives.
For years, the city has been in the cool grip of Logan Hartnett, the dapper godfather of the Hartnett Fancy gang. But there's trouble in the air. They say his old nemesis is back in town; his trusted henchman is getting ambitious; and his missus wants him to give it all up and go straight...and then there's his mother.
City of Bohane is a unique and visionary novel that blends influence from film and the graphic novel, from Trojan beats and calypso rhythms, from Celtic myth and legend, from fado and the sagas, and from all the great inheritance of Irish literature. A work of mesmerising imagination and vaulting linguistic invention, it is a taste of the startlingly new.
Genre: Science Fiction
For years, the city has been in the cool grip of Logan Hartnett, the dapper godfather of the Hartnett Fancy gang. But there's trouble in the air. They say his old nemesis is back in town; his trusted henchman is getting ambitious; and his missus wants him to give it all up and go straight...and then there's his mother.
City of Bohane is a unique and visionary novel that blends influence from film and the graphic novel, from Trojan beats and calypso rhythms, from Celtic myth and legend, from fado and the sagas, and from all the great inheritance of Irish literature. A work of mesmerising imagination and vaulting linguistic invention, it is a taste of the startlingly new.
Genre: Science Fiction
Praise for this book
"Kevin Barry is unique, a one-man school. His work is hilarious and unpredictable - and always brilliant." - Roddy Doyle
"City of Bohane testifies to, and beautifully illustrates, the mad glory of the human imagination. It should be met with parties and parades and pyrotechnics." - Niall Griffiths
"Kevin Barry is the real thing, nothing can stop him." - David Guterson
"An extreme adventure in pure language and fictional daring." - Hugo Hamilton
"An electrifying masterpiece." - Joseph O'Connor
"The most arresting and original writer to emerge from these islands in years." - Irvine Welsh
"City of Bohane testifies to, and beautifully illustrates, the mad glory of the human imagination. It should be met with parties and parades and pyrotechnics." - Niall Griffiths
"Kevin Barry is the real thing, nothing can stop him." - David Guterson
"An extreme adventure in pure language and fictional daring." - Hugo Hamilton
"An electrifying masterpiece." - Joseph O'Connor
"The most arresting and original writer to emerge from these islands in years." - Irvine Welsh
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