A Horse Walks into a Bar

Unrelentingly claustrophobic… The violence that A Horse Walks Into A Bar explores is more private and intimate. Its central interest is not the vicious treatment of vulnerable others but the cruelty that wells up within families, circulates like a poison in tight-knit groups, and finally turns inward against the self… Strategic weaving together of manic humour and tears… Searing and poignant. – Stephen Greenblatt * New York Review of Books *Brilliant, blistering… With Dovaleh, Grossman has created a character who’s captivating and horrific and a stand-up routine that’s disgusting and authentically human. I can hardly say how the book achieves its bewitching effects. It all happened so fast. – Ken Kalfus * Washington Post *Unless pop lyricists have the lock on the Nobel prize in literature from now on, then a leading future candidate must be David Grossman. * Guardian, Book of the Year *Much of it is extremely funny, but it’s also tightly controlled and carefully paced… Few writers hold a more unflinching mirror up to Israeli society than Grossman… [A Horse Walks into a Bar] is a work of sombre brilliance and disquieting rage, an unsparing exploration of the seductive spell of escapism and “the corruption that is in cynicism.” – Rebecca Abrams * Financial Times *This is a virtuoso piece of writing, a whirlwind of laughter and tears that sucks you in and makes you hold your breath. * Daily Mail *A writerly tour de force that would be unbearably painful, were it not also so generously humane. – Lucy Hughes-Hallett * New Statesman, Book of the Year *A short, shocking masterpiece. – Adam Lively * Sunday Times *David Grossman tells a story that is so emotional that you feel obliged to look away from time to time or to even put away the book once in a while so you can breathe again and so you can prepare yourself for the next confrontation with yourself and the world around you. * De Morgen *David Grossman’s new novel runs on a high voltage line, operated by a frantic, mesmerising and almost unbearable energy. An ongoing feeling of astonishment accompanies you throughout the read, and it is linked to Grossman’s bravado and to his innovation as a storyteller… A Horse Walks into a Bar…is unlike anything Grossman has written, or anything I have read. It is a packed explosive, multi-resonant, daring and exciting. – Omri Herzog * Ha’aretz *Grossman’s new novel depicts a cruel demeaning stand-up act…and yet this is not a book about the violence of man but rather on the human inside - and this is what turns Grossman to a truly great author. – Nurit Gertz * Walla! *

David Grossman is the bestselling author of numerous works, which have been translated into thirty-six languages. His novel, A Horse Walks into a Bar, was awarded the International Man Booker Prize 2017. Grossman is also the recipient of the French Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the 2010 Frankfurt Peace Prize.