Hugo Hamilton

writer

Hugo Hamilton is the author of The Speckled People, a unique, best-selling memoir of growing up in Dublin with a German mother and a fervent Irish nationalist father. It was hailed as “an instant classic” by Colum McCann and went on to win numerous prizes including the Prix Femina etranger in France. His second memoir The Sailor in the Wardrobe continues the emerging account of his confused identity and the attempted escape from the language war in which he was trapped as a child. Described by Hermione Lee as “an Irish novelist of great delicacy, originality and thoughtfulness,” he is the author of two memoirs, seven novels and a collection of short stories. His novel Disguise pursues the confusion of identity in the life of a Berlin musician who is convinced that he is a Jewish orphan and replaced a German boy who died in the bombing of the city. His latest novel Hand in the Fire (4th Estate) picks up that uneasy trespassing from one culture into another by looking at Ireland through the fresh perspective of a Serbian immigrant who is drawn into a complex relationship with a troubled Irish family. Hugo Hamilton lives in Dublin.