This Other Eden

<p><b>'Masterful . . . has much to say to our times' <i>Guardian</i><br><br>'Begs to be read'<i> Spectator</i></b><br><br><b>'A luminous thought-provoking novel' Esi Edugyan author of <i>Washington Black</i></b><br><br>In 1792 formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife Patience discover an island where they can make a life together. More than a century later the Honeys' descendants remain with an eccentric diverse band of neighbours. But during one tumultuous summer at the dawn of the twentieth century one prejudiced missionary lands on the island's shores disrupting the community's fragile balance with everlasting consequences.<br><br>Full of lyricism and power Paul Harding's<i> This Other Eden</i> explores the hopes and dreams and resilience of those seen not to fit a world brutally intolerant of difference.</p> <b>The Pulitzer prize-winning author's gifts have found their fullest expression</b> . . . [<i>This Other Eden</i>] impresses time and again because of the depth of Harding's sentences their breathless angelic light <b>Masterful </b>. . . <i>This Other Eden </i>is a story of good intentions bad faith worse science but also a tribute to community and human dignity and the possibility of another world. In both it has much to say to our times Harding's new novel is suffused with the tremulous imagery and soaring imagination that won him the Pulitzer Prize . . . <b>Exquisite</b> <b>Rich and full-bodied</b> in its lyricism Harding's novel too is part warning part memorial but perhaps above all reinforces the power of art to bring us into sympathy with strangers' lives. <b>Harding invites comparisons with authors such as William Faulkner Robinson and even Elizabeth Strout</b> . . . <i>This Other Eden</i> . . . begs to be widely read. Paul Harding is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning <i>Tinkers</i> and <i>Enon</i>. He teaches at the MFA in Creative Writing & Literature at Stony Brook University and lives on Long Island New York.