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Night Boat to Tangier
Kevin Barry
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Description for Night Boat to Tangier
Paperback.
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE IRISH TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR NOVEL OF THE YEAR AT THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS, THE DALKEY LITERARY AWARDS AND THE KERRY GROUP AWARDS A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, BIG ISSUE, i, THE ATLANTIC and LITERARY HUB 'A true wonder' Max Porter 'Beautifully written' Guardian It's late one night at the Spanish port of Algeciras and two fading Irish gangsters are waiting on the boat from Tangier. A lover has been lost, a daughter ... Read morehas gone missing, their world has come asunder - can it be put together again? Show Less
Product Details
Publisher
Canongate Books
Place of Publication
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 2 to 4 working days
About Kevin Barry
Kevin Barry is the author of the novels Beatlebone and City of Bohane and the story collections Dark Lies the Island and There Are Little Kingdoms. His awards include the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize and the Lannan Foundation Literary Award. His stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, ... Read moreGranta and elsewhere. He also works as a playwright and screenwriter, and he lives in County Sligo, Ireland. Night Boat to Tangier was an Irish number one bestseller, was longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Show Less
Reviews for Night Boat to Tangier
Beautifully written . . . Skilful
Forbes
Booze-soaked and lovelorn . . . with beat-perfect dialogue and the diamond-grade schlock of an HBO script . . . [with] a thousand wicked turns of phrase . . . Night Boat to Tangier is a darkly heady mood, thick enough and sweet enough to drink
... Read more
The List
Barry is a writer of the first rate, and his prose is at turns lean and lyrical, but always precise
Publishers Weekly
A bone fide Kevin Barry - it's very funny and very beautifully composed. . It's social realism, psychological realism, but with Barry's pointed wit, stupendous dialogue, and unerring tenderness
Bookmunch The pleasure to be found in this relatively short book is in the telling, plus the author's clear evocative prose that often deploys lines and paragraphs that suggest music but it's not the speedy pace of step dancing. Rather it is the sad, slow, and beautiful music of time
Washington Times
A writer of inspired prose, a funny and perceptive artist who can imbue a small story with tremendous depth . . . Night Boat to Tangier is a sad, lyrical beauty of a novel about regret, from a dependably entertaining and perceptive writer
Star Tribune
Barry has a knack for dialogue . . . Night Boat to Tangier is remarkable, a novel that's both grim and compassionate, and it features gorgeous writing on every page. Barry never asks the reader to pity his characters; rather, he makes it nearly impossible not to relate to them, which is a remarkable trick
NPR The story of two Irish criminal biding their time in the Spanish port city of Algeciras, is full of foreboding and of ghosts, not least that of Samuel Beckett, and is continuing proof of this writer's ability to pack more personality and mordant wit into a single sentence than most writers can manage in a novel . . . By far one of my favorite novels of the year
Literary Hub, Books of the Year
A raw demonstration of the devastating consequences of alienation, regret and destruction that stem from a life in the world of organised crime . . . Beautifully written, in Barry's very specific lyrical style, the reader becomes heavily invested in their story and the story of all of those that they loved
Rory Geraghty, First Secretary (Madrid)
Irish Times
Inventive
BENJAMIN MYERS
Big Issue, Books of the Year
Arguably his finest novel to date, Kevin Barry's violent, elemental Night Boat to Tangier is set between Ireland and an atmospherically rendered Spain
Irish Independent
Impishly funny, shrewdly affecting, and pays elegant homage to a long literary line. Barry grows in stature with every book
Big Issue, Books of the Year
One of the most gifted fiction writers to emerge from the English-speaking world in the new century
Paris Review
A meditation on love and crime, in which two elderly Irish gangsters await their reckoning in Algeciras
i, Best Books of the Year
You read this, and you can tell Barry doesn't take his sentences lightly. It'd kill him to mess one up. And he doesn't waste them. So what you get is his style's flawless, and yet it isn't soft. There isn't anything nice about the story, just that it's told beautifully
NICO WALKER, author of CHERRY Full of foreboding and of ghosts, not least that of Samuel Beckett, and is continuing proof of this writer's ability to pack more personality and mordant wit into a single sentence than most writers can manage in a novel
Literary Hub
A darkly incantatory tragicomedy of love and betrayal, haunted lineage and squandered chances . . . Beautifully paced, emotionally wise. Spare in its prose, capacious in its understanding, it's as eerily attuned as his last one, Beatlebone
Boston Globe
Deeply satisfying . . . Magical . . .Barry's narrative pacing creates and then brilliantly settles the tensions between his characters. For all readers of literary fiction
Library Journal
The male codependents in his latest novel, Night Boat to Tangier, are proudly reptilian. As they announce with indecent pride, they wear excellent fucking shoes. Barry specialises in character pairings - death-driven, addicted to each other - in a way reminiscent of Beckett
Nicole Flattery
London Review of Books
The work of a genuine artist: a writer who surprises and enlightens with everything he does
Sunday Business Post
Entertaining . . . Kevin Barry channels the music in every voice, from lowlife philosopher to slow-footed thug, ponderous wit to fluting child - and the comic genius in everyone, whether unfunny fool or God's own comedian
Washington Post
It's Barry's voice that propels us through the work, through paragraphs punctuated by turns of phrase that deliver little jolts of pleasure . . . Maurice and Charlie aren't just career criminals; they're comedians, philosophers, poets, and social critics. Their conversation has rhythm and snap; it's funny, lyrical, obscene, metaphysical, unflaggingly alive
New York Review of Books
Among the next generation of writers - Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Safran Foer and so on - the one that stands above the rest for ambition, language and sheer verve is Barry . . . If you haven't heard of him yet, you soon will. I'd wager he'll wind up with the Nobel Prize for Literature before he's done
Evening Standard
It is an understatement to say that nobody writes quite like Kevin Barry; in truth, there's nobody else in the same phylum. In Night Boat to Tangier you'll find all the Barry hallmarks - that inimitable style of his, both riotous and lyrical, the sly humour, and his seemingly effortless ability to create characters who spring to glorious life within a few short pages. I imagine you'll love this book just as I did, and wish, if anything, that you could spend just a little more time in the world Barry conjures
CRAIG DAVIDSON Heartfelt yet darkly hilarious and simmering with menace, written with the kind of earthy lyricism only Kevin Barry can pull off - I loved it
PAUL HOWARTH Vivid
New Statesman
Briskly told, in short paragraphs, with a dark wit and deftly managed suspense
Literary Review
Barry, arch-divil of Irish literature and a feverishly unique mangler of the English language, is back with a third novel . . . The Barry brew of mayhem, violence and tenderness is still undeniably potent. He is out on his own in the broad scheme of things, and so much here reminds you of why this is so and what he can do when airborne
Irish Independent
Heir to Beckett and O'Brien . . . Barry is a truly astonishing writer . . . Although the sheer bravado of the prose is a marvel, page after page, it is the emotive core behind it all which makes it remarkable
Stuart Kelly
Scotland on Sunday
A desolate ferry terminal on the Spanish coast isn't a place where you'd expect to encounter sharp-edged lyricism or rueful philosophy, but thanks to the two Irish gangster antiheroes of Barry's novel, there's plenty of both on display . . . Their banter is a shield against the dark, a witty new take on Waiting for Godot
New York Times, Books of the Year
Excellent
DAVID NICHOLLS Kevin Barry's way with language is unique. The spring and bounce of it. The dark poetry. The cheek. And then there's the sheer joyful recklessness of his imagination. There's really no one to rival him
RUPERT THOMSON Utterly compelling . . . Reading him, I am given the feeling that I've achieved something, done something good and am being justly remunerated. The brain lights up and grins
Niall Griffiths
Spectator
Buoyant . . . Barry is such a deft and generous writer
New York Times
One of the most abundantly talented novelists writing today
Daily Telegraph
Kevin Barry is one of the best. The essence of humanity and its many facets is buried deep in his bones, ready to be unearthed and exhibited in signature Barry style
Irish Examiner
The gods of literature, who have so much love for Ireland, are sweet on Kevin Barry
RICHARD BEARD Haunting . . . A sharply comic meditation on male friendship and the true cost of crime on the soul
i, best books of 2019
Thrilling
Daily Telegraph
Barry's ear for dialogue remains tip-top
Daily Mail
There's plenty of sex, drugs, death and magic in Night Boat to Tangier, but above all it is a biting, black comedy of manners, driven by the profane dance of gangster etiquette
COLIN BARRETT Barry's prose, which melds violence, profane comedy and tender lyricism, will be warmly embraced by those who read and loved the dystopian nightmare that was City of Bohane, his breakthrough book. Newcomers will, I'm sure, relish getting swept up in Barry's twisted universe for the first time
Spectator, best summer reads for 2019
Barry writes with real exuberance
Sunday Times
A bloody mighty novel. It's audacious, but also it's Kevin Barry at his most tender. The novel carries a beautiful, mournful undertow to it, which is particularly affecting in a book so heavy with old myth and new poetry. May he keep twisting literature forever
LISA McINERNEY Stunning. One of the most affecting love stories I have ever come across
MIKE McCORMACK Kevin Barry is one of the most original, daring, and seriously funny writers ever to come out of Ireland. I'd walk a hundred miles for a new Barry book and I would make the happy journey home, laughing
COLUM McCANN Infused with a uniquely Irish mixture of melancholy and myth, and written in a prose rich with the cadences of poetry, Barry's fifth work of fiction is witty, gritty and wise; it offers a sense of what it means to be fallible, to be human and to love. Sublime
Irish Mail on Sunday
Lines that make me want to punch the air like I'm singing the final song from an 80s power ballad . . . Night Boat to Tangier suggests the past comes in waves, relentlessly, always different and yet always the same, and all we can put against it are the shifting sands of our present self
Herald
Barry tells his grim story in Beckettian flashes of poetry . . . The relationship between Maurice and Charlie drives this often hilarious novel
Kate Saunders
The Times
Lyrical, elegiac, taut and strange
IAN RANKIN In this latest novel, the Irish writer has almost invented a new genre, a fascinating hybrid of poetry, prose and drama . . . Mesmeric, exquisite . . . Night Boat to Tangier draws on the terrific vernacular energy in Irish English that is animating the best of Irish writing at present . . . This is a remarkably achieved novel which shows a writer in full command of the possibilities of the form
Irish Times
Kevin Barry is still young, but in this novel he has found a deep and aged maturity; all the recognisable Barry phraseology and wit is still there, but there's also now a lovely melancholic kindness. Perhaps even a sentimentality, in the best sense of that word. Kevin Barry loves you; the least you can do is read this wonder of a novel
JON McGREGOR Loved this! Made me nostalgic for people I've never met, places I've never been. Life distilled
GRAHAM NORTON A rogue gem of a novel . . . The seedy underbelly of a Spanish port and a stony Irish town are the backdrop for a story of misdeeds, madness and loss that swells with poetry and pathos
BOOKER PRIZE JUDGES 2019 Two ageing Irish drug smugglers sit in a Spanish ferry terminal trading absurd jokes and quasi-philosophical banter in this tautly written novel
New Yorker
Captures male friendship with rare brilliance . . . The pair's vaudevillian patter, dancing back and forth with an irrepressibly buoyant Irish rhythm, reminds you of Didi and Gogo in Beckett's Waiting for Godot, while their gleefully ominous threats of violence bristle off the page in a way that recalls Harold Pinter or Martin McDonagh . . . Startlingly good
Independent
Brilliantly funny and terrifying at once, I was completely lost inside its dark craziness. Barry blends glorious voluptuous prose with entrancing storytelling
TESSA HADLEY Extremely talented creator, Kevin Barry, has a fine instinct for the sweet spot where the comforting familiarities of genre blend into the surprises and provocations of art . . . Powerfully evoked
New York Times Book Review
I had to quit reading this book the first day I had it in my hands, just so I could have it to read the next day. It's that good
RICHARD FORD Barry is riding the waves with Night Boat to Tangier . . . Reminiscent of Waiting for Godot
The Times
If prose were gold and diamonds there'd be thousands of hell-bent prospectors heading for the Black Hills of Kevin Barry's glistening, sparkling novel
SEBASTIAN BARRY The novel 2019 has been waiting for - a masterpiece delivered by a glittering talent at the peak of his powers. It leaves the rest of the class looking somewhat underpowered and unambitious, perhaps even a bit shop-worn . . . If Beatlebone was his breakout work, Night Boat to Tangier should cement the Irishman's place among the literary elite
Big Issue
It's a Kevin Barry novel, so the brilliance is expected; everything else is a brilliant surprise
RODDY DOYLE I devoured Night Boat to Tangier. I loved the potent truth of it all, drenched in damage and romance. The Barry turn of phrase is a true wonder of this world
MAX PORTER A blackly comic journey into the abyss . . . Beautifully written . . . Barry is a clarvoyant narrator of the male psyche and a consistent lyrical visionary . . . What distinguishes this book beyond its humour, terror and beauty of description is its moral perception . . . It is a plunging spiritual immersion into the parlous souls of wrongful men
Alan Warner
Guardian
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