Lark's Eggs

Des Hogan is, and has always been, the real thing - a writer of great originality, dramatic flair, linguistic invention - who remakes the world every time he puts pen to paper.' Neil Jordan. Desmond Hogan is one of most remarkable literary talents to have come out of Ireland in the past half-century. Larks' Eggs affirms that stature. Here, with twenty-two classic stories taken from earlier collections and twelve fresh narratives, Hogan displays anew his lyricism, compassion and sheer prismatic brilliance. His subject is exile and self-image, explored through isolates and eccentrics, brittle lives trapped by poverty, personal histories and restless identities, giving a voice to those on the margins -Travellers, the misplaced, the dispossessed. Describing 'The Airedale' in William Trevor's The Oxford Book of Short Stories, Cressida Connolly wrote: 'it is profound, moving and exquisitely executed. Hogan is one of the finest writers alive today and deserves to be much better...