"The novel tells the story of the rescue by a small Irish boat of 168 German sailors during World War II. The narrator is Jack Roche, a 14-year-old Wexford lad whose father has been killed at sea. Part historical fiction, part coming-of-age narrative, this is a perceptive and exciting novel about life at sea as a way of dramatizing human relations at their most intense."

Colm Tóibín

Dermot Bolger is the author of fourteen novels, including The Journey Home, The Family on Paradise Pier, The Lonely Sea and Sky and An Ark of Light. His debut play, The Lament for Arthur Cleary, received the Samuel Beckett Award. Numerous other plays include The Ballymun Trilogy and, most recently, Last Orders on the Dockside and an adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses, both staged by The Abbey Theatre. He has published ten poetry collections, including Other People's Lives in 2022. He devised the bestselling collaborative novels, Finbar's Hotel and Ladies Night at Finbar's Hotel, and edited numerous anthologies, including The Picador Book of Contemporary Irish Fiction. As an eighteen-year-old factory hand in 1978 he founded Raven Arts Press, which in time became New Island Books – one of Ireland's leading publishers. In 2012 he was named Commentator of the Year at the Irish Newspaper awards. In 2021 he received the 2021 Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry and, in 2022, received an honorary doctorate in Literature from the National University of Ireland.