Ferdia Lennon

An exhilarating and fiercely original story of brotherhood, war and art, set in ancient Sicily. So Gelon says to me, 'Let's go down and feed the Athenians. The weather's perfect for feeding Athenians.' It's 412 BC, and Athens' invasion of Sicily has failed catastrophically. Thousands of Athenian soldiers are held captive in the quarries of Syracuse, starving, dejected and hanging...

'One of the most original and brilliant debuts in years' Irish Times An exhilarating and fiercely original story of brotherhood, war, and art, set in ancient Sicily. Ancient Sicily. Enter GELON – visionary, dreamer, theatre lover. Enter LAMPO – lovesick, jobless, in need of a distraction. Imprisoned in the quarries of Syracuse, thousands of defeated Athenians hang on by the...

Winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction - Winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize - Winner of the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award - Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction - Shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year by the Irish Book Awards - Shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards Debut Fiction Prize...