Rhys Hughes Sampler

A selection of stories by a writer highly praised for his imagination.

"Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet's literature. He toys with convention. He makes the metaphysical political, the personal incredible and the comic hints at subtle pain. Few living fictioneers approach this chef's sardonic confections, certainly not in English." - MICHAEL MOORCOCK

"If I said he was a Welsh writer who writes as though he has gone to school with the best writing from all over the world, I wonder if my compliment would just sound provincial. Hughes' style, with all that means, is among the most beautiful I've encountered in several years." - SAMUEL R. DELANY

"It's a crime that Rhys Hughes is not as widely known as Italo Calvino and other writers of that stature. Brilliantly written and conceived, Hughes' fiction has few parallels anywhere in the world. In some alternate universe with a better sense of justice, his work triumphantly parades across all bestseller lists." - JEFF VANDERMEER

"Every Hughes story implies much, served with wit and whimsy and word-relish, high spirits and bittersweet twists." - IAN WATSON

"A dazzling disintegration of the reality principle. A rite of passage to the greater world beyond common sense. Raises the bar on profundity and sets a comic standard for the tragic limits of our human experience. Like Beckett on nitrous oxide. Like Kafka with a brighter sense of humour." - A.A. ATTANASIO

"I wore throughout the undisplaceable, unsequelchable rictus of a grin of both delight and amazement." - MICHAEL BISHOP

"Hughes' world is a magical one, and his language is the most magical thing of all." - T.E.D. KLEIN