The Last Voyage and Other Stories (Paperback)

"I have never read anything in fiction that brings the abominable suffering that goes on all the time among the exploited of the earth so savagely and unsparingly home" - John Cowper Powers. This book brings together the best stories of a writer who, in the words of his son, Liam Hanley, "gave working men and their wives and children a voice - their voice". Some of these are sea stories about those who do the back-breaking work aboard a ship and theirs attempts to maintain their dignity throughout hopeless struggles with the sea and with each other; some show lonely and frustrated people who toil for monolithic organisations, in which they are not even noticed let alone thanked. All deal sympathetically with men and women who are the victims of the torturous forces of war, or class, or poverty, in a economical, winnowed style, which is as effective for what it leaves out as for what it includes. The Last Voyage and Other Stories comprises: "The German Prisoner". "A Passion before Death", "Narrative", " Greaser Anderson" and "The Last Voyage". "Of the greatness of [Hanley's] power, of the force of his pity, there can be no doubt. Off all the writers about the sea he is the most consistently memorable" - Alan Ross, from the Introduction. "A novelist of distinction and originality" - E.M. Forster. "There are some writers who seem to have a private path into people's souls. They lead you there through unfamiliar streets...And yet, when you have arrived, there is no question that you are there...James Hanley is such a writer" - New York Times. "There is a richness and depth that reveals the endless subtleties and consistencies of characters and the magic of the private worlds they create" - Times Literacy Supplement.