In a few words
From the Orange- and Whitbread-shortlisted author of Buddha Da
Not since Alan Spence came on the scene has anyone written better about childhood and her richly expressive Scots is neither forced nor fey. A page-turner to make you laugh and cry.
Donny O'rourke
ScotsmanHieroglyphics conjures up spellbinding stories of childhood and change in voices so vibrant they leave you speechless.
Willy Mally
Sunday HeraldMore about
the book
A beautiful collection – charming, witty and touching – these stories give voice to a variety of different characters: from the little girl who wants to look ‘subtle’ for her father’s funeral, a child who has an email pen pal on Jupiter and an old lady who becomes a star through ‘zimmerobics’.
Often writing in a vibrant Glaswegian vernacular, Donovan deftly gives her characters authenticity with a searing power, aided and abetted by tender subtlety.
Hieroglyphics and Other Stories is Donovan's excellent debut collection . . . Donovan illuminates exactly the dislocations and intensifications that occur within a relationship, whether between lovers or mother and child.