The Good

"...In her new book, Hannah Kent does not simply transport us to the dark, yet so enchanting Ireland of the nineteenth century. She doesn’t just show us how harsh, dangerous and terrifying the world was back then. She confronts us with the ancient fear that is deeply rooted within us. The fear of the other, the different, which we do not understand and which frightens us. Perhaps the spells have ceased because we now know that fairies and elves do not exist. And perhaps we laugh at all this. But the fear is still here, and that is no laughing matter."

"...Hannah Kent’s writing flows charmingly, with simplicity yet profound depth. And she has the audacity to describe, with the same poetic, vivid quality, the grand and the minute, natural landscapes and human emotions, the simple moments of everyday life as well as some tragic scenes of brutal cruelty. Maria Angelidou’s marvellous translation, with its sensitivity and experience, has made a decisive contribution to all this."

"... the story it tells us shows no inconsistency, no imbalance in the flow of life for the people of that era. The absurd is closely intertwined with the utterly normal. Let the latter be considered yet another of the book’s many merits. A special final mention must go to Maria Angelidou’s translation. A rich language that renders the story’s extraordinary setting in the best possible way, using the most appropriate words that also draw on our own corresponding vocabulary of folk traditions. All in all, a very interesting new literary offering from Hannah Kent, every bit as impressive as her debut, which caused such a sensation."

"...Family bonds, belief in prejudices and superstitions, the clash between the church and magic, the struggle to survive without knowledge and science, the exploitation of man by his fellow man, the power of honesty, punishment and vindication are some of the themes that Kent skilfully presents, making the book an easy and enjoyable read..."

"...Kent does not comment on her characters’ beliefs, however irrational they may seem to the modern reader; she simply presents the efforts of the three women to ‘solve’ the problem, faced with cruelty, indifference and aggression. There is a claustrophobic feel to the novel. The characters are trapped by geography, ignorance and poverty. However, the gifted author does not underestimate them, even when they are driven to extreme acts of desperation, whilst she focuses particularly on the culture of guilt and the underlying malice behind their respectable manners."

"...The author constructs the myth using carefully chosen words and builds her narrative universe in a vivid manner, with detailed descriptions of the landscapes, the people, their way of life, and the rituals that take place in the valley – descriptions of unique beauty – thereby creating a mysterious, dreamlike atmosphere, an atmosphere beyond this world."

"...Hannah Kent, known to us from the remarkable *Burial Rites*, returns with her second book. She manages, in a wonderful way – whilst writing about another country and a different era– to maintain the same evocative atmosphere in this book, to tell yet another story of female strength (and weakness) through the ages, of love and madness, of loss and courage."

"Drawing on the mythological and fairy-tale traditions of one’s homeland, as well as research into the lives of the working classes in Ireland in the case of Hanna Kent, and the psychoanalytic components of the twins’ idiosyncratic development, for Vicente Alfonso, the two authors construct a fictional universe tinged with the shades of a medieval-style obscurantism, in order to highlight all the paradoxes of human faith, guilt and metaphysical expectation, centred on the central premise that man is willing to believe anything rather than believe the truth, as well as on the assumption that, in the context of our interaction with the world, we all have an innate tendency to invent people we do not understand."

"Hannah Kent’s *The Good People* is a story about people who believe in fairies and superstitions, but also about all those who try to eradicate that belief and its practices. The author builds the world around her readers with a strange talent. Her descriptions make you feel as though you are there, yet they are not so detailed that you lose interest."

"...Based on true events, the story told by Kent is both awe-inspiring and spine-chilling, in a narrative that explores the extreme acts of people where weakness and fear reign, despair and rage colour humanity’s most extreme acts."

"...The great strength of Kent’s writing is the tremendous atmosphere she builds on every page of the book. It is characteristic that you feel the water flowing at your feet, you tread on the grass, you smell the scent of herbs and the ashes fall upon you. [...] Kent’s ability to recreate lost worlds is unique, whilst the vibrancy of her language contributes greatly to the final result: her novel is an ideal choice for those who enjoy distinctive, atmospheric and well-written books."