RiddleyWalker rear cover

Literaturo

Riddlcy Walker is a brilliant, umquc, completely rcali/ed work of fiction. One reads it again and again. discovcrmg new wonden cvcry timc through. Set m a remotc futurę in a post nuclear-holocaust Etigland (Inland), Hoban bas imagmed a human-ity regressed to an ironage, semi-litcrate stale—and invcntcd a langtiage t«> repre-sent it. Riddlcy i> both the I luck Finn and the Stephen Dcdalus of his culture— rcbel. artist, and agent of change. “Walker is my namc and I ani the same, Riddlcy Walker. Walking my riddcls where evcr theyve took mc and walking them now on this paper the same."

The languagc has intimidatcd sonie readers, though it is casily decipherable with attentive readmg. As an atd to readers, Hoban has now added an afterword, sainples of his original working notes, and a glossary.

“A hero with Huck Finns heart and charm, lighting by El Greco and jokes by Punch and Judy. . . . Riddlcy Walker is haunting and rtercely imagined and—this matters most—intcnsely ponderablc."

—Benjamin DeMort. New York Times Book Renew

“This is what literaturę is meant to be...—Anthony Burgess

“Russell 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 mastcrpiece."    —Anthony Thwaite, Observer

“F.xtraordinary. . . . Suffused with mclancholy and won der, beautifully written, Riddlcy Walker is a novel that people will l>e reading for a long, long tinie."

—Michacl Dirda, Washington Post Book World

“Stunning, delicious, designed to prcvent the modern reader from hecom i ng stupid.”    —John Leonard, New York Times

“Rieh, intricatc.. .. Russell Hoban has put many things right, just right, in a book where at first sight all the words are wrong, and at second sight not a scntcncc is to be missed.”    —Hugh Kenncr, New York

The author and Mr. Punch

RUSSELL HOBAN was born in IS m Lansdalc, Pennsylvania. He is author of numerous children*s books, including The Mouse and Ihs Child. Other novcls in-elude The l.ion of Boaz-Jdtbin and Jachm-Boaz. Kleinzeit, Turtle Diary, and Pilgermann.

Indiana University Press

BLOOMINGTON AND INDIANAPOLIS

ISBN 0-2SB-BL23M-0 9 0 000

3*.'.

Punch madę by Bob Wadę. Photos by Norbert (lalea.