Nostos

'This is a mighty book in every sense of that mighty word mighty. This book is almost seven hundred pages, but that is a straw compared with the scale of its contents - its stories, its poems, its memories, its prayers, its laughter, its tears, its songs, its passions, its dinnseanchas, its thought, its insight, its fun, its madness, its celebrations, its terrible suffering, its amazing physical presence, its amazing spirituality. I am indulging no idle hyperbole when I say that this autobiography by John Moriarty is one of the most remarkable autobiographies I have ever read in my entire life... Every household in Ireland should have a copy of this magical book.'
- Paul Durcan

'Moriarty is a Kerryman who has walked the earth listening like a water diviner for rumblings underneath. And everywhere he goes he finds the same thing. That human beings in our grey modern clothes are cut off from the earth. Cut off from our deepest psychic energy. And this sense of loss is something he addresses with a wide variety of texts, from every corner of the globe, and almost every period of history. In one sense his achievement is to offer an insight into modern Western loneliness. That is the philosopher in him. But there is the poet as well. And the eclectic collection of stories from all over the globe and every part of history, rendered to us in the authorŐs very original voice, is itself an act of poetry. In Nostos Moriarty has surpassed all his previous achievements. Because it is in the recording of his life, that his passionate imagination finally makes sense - and here he has recorded his life expansively and clearly and movingly. It is written in exquisite Irish-English, it's unique voice, and it sings through in every page of a beautifully made book.'
- Michael Harding, Sunday Tribune

'MoriartyŐs erudition is immense... his words are shamanic, brushed with sparks of mystic fire... Nostos is a remarkable, paradoxical book, biblical in scope and shape.'
- Gerry McCarthy, Sunday Times