Riddley Walker, Expanded Edition

A brilliant, unique, and completely realized work of fiction, Riddley Walker--first published in 1980--is set in a remote future in a post-nuclear holocaust England (Inland), where humanity has regressed to an iron-age, semi-literate state, represented by a language created especially by Hoban for the book. n nA hero with Huck Finn's heart and charm, lighting by El Greco and jokes by Punch and Judy. . . . Riddley Walker is haunting and fiercely imagined and--this matters most--intensely ponderable. --Benjamin DeMott, The New York Times Book Reviewn nThis is what literature is meant to be. --Anthony Burgessn nRussell Hoban has brought off an extraordinary feat of imagination and style. . . . The conviction and consistency are total. Funny, terrible, haunting and unsettling, this book is a masterpiece. --Anthony Thwaite, Observern nExtraordinary . . . Suffused with melancholy and wonder, beautifully written, Riddley Walker is a novel that people will be reading for a long, long time. --Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book Worldn nStunning, delicious, designed to prevent the modern reader from becoming stupid. --John Leonard, The New York Timesn nHighly enjoyable . . . An intriguing plot . . . Ferociously inventive. --Walter Clemons, Newsweekn nAstounding . . . Hoban's soaring flight of imagination is that golden rarity, a dazzlingly realized work of genius. --Jane Clapperton, Cosmopolitann nAn imaginative intensity that is rare in contemporary fiction.' --Paul Gray, Timen nRiddley Walker is a brilliant, unique, completely realized work of fiction. One reads it again and again, discovering new wonders every time through. Set in a remote future in a post-nuclear holocaust England (Inland), Hoban has imagined a humanity regressed to an iron-age, semi-literate state--and invented a language to represent it. Riddley is at once the Huck Finn and the Stephen Dedalus of his culture--rebel, change agent, and artist. Read again or for the first time this masterpiece of 20th-century literature with new material by the author.n