Hugo Hamilton is the best-selling author of THE SPECKLED PEOPLE (4th Estate- Harper Perennial), a German-Irish memoir of his unique experience growing up in Dublin with a fervent Irish nationalist father and German mother who came to Ireland in the aftermath of World War 2. Hailed by Colm Toibin as a ‘masterpiece’ and an ‘instant classic’ by Roy Foster, his account of a family locked in a ‘language war’ in which his father prohibited the use of English in the home, addresses all the ‘great issues of the 20th century’( Nuala O Faolain). Joseph O Connor described ‘The Speckled People’ as a ‘book for our times and perhaps for all time’. It won the prestigious PRIX FEMINA etranger in France, as well as the BERTO PRIZE in Italy, and appeared on the New York Times notable books list.
Hugo Hamilton has been described by Hermione Lee as ‘an Irish novelist of great delicacy, originality and thoughtfulness.’ His equally ‘rich and compelling’ second memoir THE SAILOR IN THE WARDROBE continues the story of this complex dual upbringing and has also been widely praised as an ‘enchanting piece of work’ (Terry Eagleton). He is the acclaimed author of five novels and one collection of short stories, all of which reflect on the increasingly compelling issues of cultural divisions and belonging. His novel DISGUISE (4th Estate 2008) picks up this central theme of identity by exploring the life of a three year old Jewish boy who replaced a German child of the same age, lost in the bombing at the end of World War 2.
His latest novel HAND IN THE FIRE (4th Estate) tells the story of a disintegrating Irish family, seen through the eyes of a Serbian immigrant, Vid Cosic. His arrival in Ireland draws him into a complex relationship with the Concannon family, working for them as a carpenter and coming to terms with the ‘uneasy trespassing’ into a new country. The novel examines Ireland from a fresh literary perspective, through the eyes of a newcomer trying to fit in and make sense of the dark secrets from the past which still cast a shadow over this troubled Irish family.
‘A magnificently lucid novel’ Patricia Craig
‘Hamilton loves the spaces between things: his characters live, not just between cultures or between languages, but between the past and the future; they stay suspended between innocence and guilt, between knowledge and the lack of it.’ Anne Enright
Hugo Hamilton lives in Dublin.
