Description

One day, the children begin to show up in the subtropical town of San Cristobal, unwashed and hungry. No one knows where they have come from or where they disappear to each night. And then they rob a supermarket and stab two adults, bringing fear to the town.

So begins a thrilling morality tale that retraces the lines between good and evil, the civil and the wild, dragging our assumptions about childhood and innocence out into the light.

Publisher Review

'A Luminous Republic has all the stark power of a folk-tale or a fable. It also raises concerns that are pressing and contemporary-about the function and source of language, about public paranoia and hysteria, about the idea of community and how information spreads. At the book's center is a moving personal story about memory and loss. The narrative is engaging, at times playful, wholly compelling' - Colm Toibin 'At first you will feel fear, but what you feel next is something much deeper, disturbing and luminous' - Samanta Schweblin