'The most gripping book I've read in ages . . . Fascinating, disturbing and often very funny.' Roddy Doyle

In one of the finest memoirs to have emerged from Ireland in many years, the acclaimed novelist Hugo Hamilton brings alive his German-Irish childhood in 1950s Dublin. Between his father's strict Irish nationalism and the softly spoken stories of his mother's German past, this little boy tells the tale of a whole family's homesickness for a country, and a language, they can call their own.

'An extraordinary achievement ... A wonderful, subtle, problematic and humane book. It is about Ireland as well as about a particular family, but it is also about alternatives and complexities anywhere.' George Szirtes, Irish Times

'This story about a battle over language and defeat 'in the language wars' is also a victory for eloquent writing, crafty and cunning in its apparent simplicity.' Hermione Lee, Guardian

'Hamilton's first masterpiece. To read The Speckled People is to remember why great writing matters. A book for our times, and probably of all time.'
Joseph O'Connor, Daily Mail