Orchid & The Wasp - Hardcover

Caoilinn Hughes is an Irish writer whose poetry collection Gathering Evidence won the Irish Times Shine/Strong Award and the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for both the Seamus Heaney Prize and the Pigott Poetry Prize. She is a fellow of the James Merrill Foundation, and the Bogliasco Foundation, and was awarded a Tin House Writers Workshop Scholarship for Summer 2017, a Literature Bursary Award from the Arts Council of Ireland, and The Ireland Funds Monaco Award. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Granta, POETRY, Best British Poetry, BBC Radio 3, The Rumpus and elsewhere. She divides her time between her native Ireland and the Netherlands.

`Caoilinn Hughes's highly ambitious fiction debut contains multitudes... Kick-ass, whip-smart and with "a tongue like a catapult", Gael belongs to a venerable tradition of feisty heroines...readers are going to love her.' * Sunday Times * `Orchid & the Wasp is a gorgeous novel told in an onrush of wit and ferocity. Art-forging, smack-talking, long-distance-running Gael Foess, three times smarter than everyone around her, proves to be an unforgettable heroine, and her journey will rattle your most basic assumptions about money, ambition, and the nature of love. Caoilinn Hughes is a massive talent.' * Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All the Light We Cannot See * `A gem of a debut about the way we live now.' * Elle * `Orchid & the Wasp is an ambitious, richly inventive and highly entertaining account of the way we live now. Caoilinn Hughes writes with authority and insight, and her novel is as up-to-date as tomorrow's financial-page headlines.' * John Banville, Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea * `Caoilinn Hughes is the real thing - an urgent, funny, painstaking and heartfelt writer. Orchid & the Wasp is a startling debut full of the moral complexity, grief and strange bewilderments of humanity. As the world spins ever more quickly in response to the demands of grifters, parasites and liars, this book offers a troubling, beautiful and wise response.' * A. L. Kennedy, Costa Prize-winning author of Day and Serious Sweet * `Whipsmart, McInerney-esque language and one of the more memorable literary heroines of 2018... Hughes' award-winning origins as a poet - see her 2014 collection Gathering Evidence - get poured into a new mould for this rite-of-passage tale of a daughter in post-crash Dublin trying to forge a life in London and New York after the separation of her materialist parents. Gael, as she is called, is a real find, with US author David Vann (Bright Air Black, Aquarium) going as far as to call her "my favourite discovery of the year".' * Irish Independent * `One of the most beautifully written novels of the year with one of the most memorable central characters.' * Rick O'Shea, RTE broadcaster * `A razor-sharp wit and an astonishing psychological and emotional perceptiveness combine to yield uncommonly rich portraiture in this bracing book by a deadly talented writer, in prose so refined one slows to savour each beautifully unfolding sentence. Unsentimental, yet sneakily moving and given to surprising bouts of joy.' * Matthew Thomas, New York Times-bestselling author of We Are Not Ourselves * `Gael, the young heroine of Orchid & the Wasp, is a magnificent and assured creation, breathtakingly smart, never self-pitying, impossible for others to manage, my favorite discovery this year. Hughes' characters are rare, like no one you've read before. This is an entirely original novel, dazzling and beautiful, disturbingly cold and insistent.' * David Vann, author of Legend of a Suicide * `Fresh, playful and exuberant: Hughes has arrived with a heady style that is full of surprise and invention.' * Paul Lynch, Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year-winning author of Grace * `[A] visceral and electrifying debut... In Gael, Hughes has created a mesmerizing and compelling force.' * Booklist * `A dark but highly amusing coming-of-age story... Prize-winning Irish poet, Caoilinn Hughes has written a stunningly ambitious debut novel, revealing a considerable talent. If this is a beginning, she is destined for literary greatness.' * Bookjotter * `Hughes delivers a compelling exploration of what it means to create art, skewering the arbitrary restrictions of art-world gatekeepers along the way. At the emotional heart of this book lies a darker question, though: What does it mean to make a performance of your own life, in service of your family, when the cost might be to lose them forever? As strange, musical, and carefully calculated as its unusual heroine.' * Kirkus * `Orchid & the Wasp is a tremendously engaging novel, brimming with sparky humour and astute observations. Caoilinn Hughes' prose fizzes with wit and intelligence. A joy to read.' * Danielle McLaughlin, Saboteur Award-wining author of Dinosaurs on Other Planets * `In lush, envy-inducing prose we're introduced to Gael Foess, the spikiest adult-in-training since Lolita, who has parents worthy of a Roald Dahl novel, in their poor caretaking efforts and self-absorption. We can only hang on in wonder as we witness the savvy Gael's progression through life from such beginnings. Caoilinn Hughes' crafted, intricate language is a joy and her characters strut their many flaws with panache. Orchid & the Wasp is an up-to-the-minute, radiant debut from a deeply talented writer.' * Nuala O'Connor, author of Miss Emily * `Caoilinn Hughes has given us an unforgettable character in Gael - an unflinchingly wise and wise-cracking guide through our fractured times. Hers is a story that holds the fun-house mirror to the society we have built of greed and twisted finance. From the doomed Irish boom to the Occupy movement, the novel lays bare the impoverished spirit that led to economic collapse while providing us a path out of it. By turns poetic, hilarious and raw, this novel gives us hope that love and the retrieval of spirit are not only achievable, but worth pursuing to the very last sentence.' * Ana Menendez, Pushcart Prize-winning author of In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd * `Though the stories she tells work their way through elaborate worlds, it is her characters, detailed with sharp and subtle grace, which power the engine of Caoilinn Hughes's vivid prose.' * Amelia Gray, author of Isadora and Gutshot * `Hughes is an exciting writer who has rightfully attracted a lot of buzz for her debut, and this is sure to be one of my novels of the year.' * Bookish Beck, blogger review *