Turning a drab journey into a tour de force

David Park, the quiet man of Irish writing has deftly got on with building up a remarkable oeuvre of superbly crafted fiction, each novel constructed without pyrotechnics or any dilution of his sparse, lyrical and clear-headed prose

David Park: the quiet man of Irish writing Pic: Getty

Fiction: Travelling in a Strange Land, By David Park, Bloomsbury, €16.45

The nature of the literary news cycle is that it can often be dependent on the newsworthiness of the latest debut or next-big-thing author to be subjected to a bidding war at the Frankfurt Book Fair: authors of undoubted potential who sometimes thrive but, equally, can vanish under the weight of expectations on inexperienced shoulders.

David Park is an interesting contrast in ...