Glorious exploits - Ferdia Lennon

WINNER OF THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2024

'Bold and totally unexpected, I loved this book' Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain

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Scene 1: Ancient Italy. Centre stage stands GELON. A visionary, dreamer, theatre lover. Enter LAMPO. Unemployed, lovesick, in need of a distraction.

Over a goatskin of wine in their favourite taverna, two best friends scheme up their best idea yet.

They're going to put on one of the Greeks' greatest plays, with the sun-baked quarries of Sicily as their stage and captured Athenian soldiers as their cast.

It's audacious. It might even be dangerous. But like all the best things in life - friendship, forgiveness, art itself - it's going to show them the very worst, and the very best, of what humans are capable of.

What could possibly go wrong?

***

'Madly ambitious, cathartic like all great tragedy, but shockingly funny too, Ferdia Lennon's outstandingly original dbut is just glorious' Emma Donoghue, author of Room

'One of the most original and brilliant Irish debuts in years' Irish Times

'A very special, very clever, very entertaining novel' Roddy Doyle, author of Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha