WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017
One of the world's great writers venturing into exciting new
territory - a heartbreaking, visceral novel about a stand-up
comedian
David Grossman is the bestselling author of numerous works, which have been translated into thirty-six languages. His most recent novel, A Horse Walks into a Bar, was awarded the International Man Booker Prize 2017, and shortlisted for the TLS-Risa Domb/Porjes Prize 2019. Grossman is also the recipient of the French Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the 2010 Frankfurt Peace Prize.
Unrelentingly claustrophobic… The violence that A Horse Walks Into
A Bar explores is more private and intimate. Its central interest
is not the vicious treatment of vulnerable others but the cruelty
that wells up within families, circulates like a poison in
tight-knit groups, and finally turns inward against the self…
Strategic weaving together of manic humour and tears… Searing and
poignant.
*New York Review of Books*
Brilliant, blistering… With Dovaleh, Grossman has created a
character who’s captivating and horrific and a stand-up routine
that’s disgusting and authentically human. I can hardly say how the
book achieves its bewitching effects. It all happened so fast.
*Washington Post*
Unless pop lyricists have the lock on the Nobel prize in literature
from now on, then a leading future candidate must be David
Grossman.
*Guardian, Book of the Year*
Much of it is extremely funny, but it’s also tightly controlled and
carefully paced… Few writers hold a more unflinching mirror up to
Israeli society than Grossman… [A Horse Walks into a Bar] is a work
of sombre brilliance and disquieting rage, an unsparing exploration
of the seductive spell of escapism and “the corruption that is in
cynicism.”
*Financial Times*
This is a virtuoso piece of writing, a whirlwind of laughter and
tears that sucks you in and makes you hold your breath.
*Daily Mail*
A writerly tour de force that would be unbearably painful, were it
not also so generously humane.
*New Statesman, Book of the Year*
A short, shocking masterpiece.
*Sunday Times*
David Grossman tells a story that is so emotional that you feel
obliged to look away from time to time or to even put away the book
once in a while so you can breathe again and so you can prepare
yourself for the next confrontation with yourself and the world
around you.
*De Morgen*
David Grossman’s new novel runs on a high voltage line, operated by
a frantic, mesmerising and almost unbearable energy. An ongoing
feeling of astonishment accompanies you throughout the read, and it
is linked to Grossman’s bravado and to his innovation as a
storyteller… A Horse Walks into a Bar…is unlike anything Grossman
has written, or anything I have read. It is a packed explosive,
multi-resonant, daring and exciting.
*Ha’aretz*
Grossman’s new novel depicts a cruel demeaning stand-up act…and yet
this is not a book about the violence of man but rather on the
human inside - and this is what turns Grossman to a truly great
author.
*Walla!*
A fine Israeli writer… It takes an author of Mr Grossman’s stature
to channel not a failed stand-up but a shockingly effective
one.
*The Economist*
Grossman's new novel is a…bravura performance… This remarkable
book, rendered into English by Grossman's veteran translator
Jessica Cohen, teases the reader as nakedly as the comedian does
his crowd. On every page, we encounter an implied invitation to set
the book down but the performer's struggle to muffle and at the
same time release the howls from his soul is too profoundly
haunting.
*Jewish Chronicle*
With masterly control and brilliant timing (it’s not easy to write
stand-up, let alone translate it into another language, as Jessica
Cohen has done so well here) Grossman has Dovaleh tell his life
story, starting with the night of his conception… It may be
Grossman’s finest novel yet.
*1843Magazine*
With this raw and fiercely emotional book Grossman, one of Israel’s
finest writers, steps into tricky new territory.
*Spectator*
An unexpected delight… This is a novel, for our new Age.
*Guardian*
A Horse Walks into a Bar is a delight.
*Times Literary Supplement*
With A Horse Walks into a Bar, Israeli writer David Grossman
accomplishes the seemingly impossible and transposes an entire
stand-up show into a novel. Shocking and intense, bleak but
sensitive, this affecting tale is much more than novelty… A novel
that probes the fullest absurdities of the human condition and our
capacities to reconstitute suffering.
*Chortle*
The thrust though is the comedian’s monologue, by turns tragic and
hilarious as he subjects his audience to his story.
*Country and Townhouse*
This is yet another masterwork from the wonderful Israeli novelist
whose work resonates with emotional intelligence, humanity and
truth.
*Irish Times*
Bold, brash, angry and heartbreakingly tender, with flurries of
exasperated humour, here is a novel to take one by surprise… A
demanding and gloriously rewarding novel, in it Grossman confronts
the business of being alive.
*Irish Times*
A sensitive and deeply emotional account of a past-prime comedian…
This book is an immersive read for both the fans and haters of the
stand-up comedy, but tread carefully if you’re not up for an
emotional rollercoaster.
*Oxford Student*
The perfect antidote to Trump.
*Guardian*
This book is a compelling study of the relationship between artist
and spectator, and how suffering feeds into art, and he’s made of
it a bravura performance… Extraordinary.
*Herald*
A haunting, intense and Man Booker International prize-winning
novel from a great writer.
*Mail on Sunday*
Incredibly fast paced, and the dialogue comes at you like a machine
gun… It is powerful in its own right.
*Nudge*
Abrasive, unexpected and eventually heartbreaking, it is a
masterclass in characterisation and structure, and it beat off some
exceptionally strong competition to win the prize… A Horse Walks
into a Bar is quite unlike any other Grossman book except in one
important respect: it’s another masterpiece.
*New Statesman*
Excellent.
*Observer*
Pitch-perfect black comedy
*Guardian*
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