Rupert Dastur

Deeply moving ... Set on a hill farm in north Wales, the cycles of the natural world are rendered with the same power and exactitude as the human dramas of love and loss which exist alongside them. Beautiful and unflinching, Cloudless is a phenomenal debut.

Dastur skillfully weaves a story about love and war, family and nation, addiction and recovery, all with intelligence, sensitivity and a huge heart. A must read

Elegant and quietly devastating ... Dastur affords his characters such grace and complexity that they transcend fiction to become people you feel that you know and care for deeply

Melissa Fu, author of Peach Blossom Spring

A beautifully written exploration of family breakdown set against the background of the Iraq war ... A sparkling debut.

Sean Lusk, author of The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley

An accomplished, breathtaking debut novel that sweeps the reader into the hearts and minds of its characters. With muscular, precise prose, Dastur lays out the complexities hidden in the heart of a family ... The narrative is so superbly crafted and the characters so thoroughly integrated within their own landscape that the novel feels like a meeting of minds ... A wonderful work of craftsmanship and a complex, beautifully written debut

Catherine Menon, author of Fragile Monsters

A tender portrait of a family struggling to stay afloat ... It’s beautifully written and the characters are very well drawn. The tension builds slowly as each of their emotional landscapes becomes increasingly difficult to bear ... A very assured debut

This is gritty and unflinching and a realistic examination of survival and I loved it. So well written, the language is economical and the quality of the writing is so strong... It really does feel in its 298 pages that not a word or idea is wasted.

This well-observed drama with believable characters, albeit flawed, focuses on a family who must pull together and accept change to survive

It is autumn 2004 and in a farmhouse on the hills outside Llandudno, a family endures the agonizing wait for their son to return from Iraq. His decision to join up has left them reeling, yet there are other pressing concerns to be met at home: the working of the farmland that has been theirs for generations and what to do with their troubled younger son. 
 
Catrin’s childhood sweetheart comes back to their small town, giving the boys’ doting mother a glimpse into the life she could have had. And John, their father, falls once more into his gambling habit, even as the farm sits on the brink of bankruptcy. 
 
As each member of the family grasps at their own tenuous lifeline, they drift further from one another – until, on a cold winter evening, there is a fateful knock at the door. 
 
Written in luminous, exquisitely calibrated prose, Cloudless is a masterful portrayal of the fragility and resilience of human connection.

Rupert Dastur

Praise for Cloudless

Deeply moving ... Set on a hill farm in north Wales, the cycles of the natural world are rendered with the same power and exactitude as the human dramas of love and loss which exist alongside them. Beautif ...

Dastur skillfully weaves a story about love and war, family and nation, addiction and recovery, all with intelligence, sensitivity and a huge heart. A must read

Elegant and quietly devastating ... Dastur affords his characters such grace and complexity that they transcend fiction to become people you feel that you know and care for deeply

Deeply moving ... Set on a hill farm in north Wales, the cycles of the natural world are rendered with the same power and exactitude as the human dramas of love and loss which exist alongside them. Beautif ...

Dastur skillfully weaves a story about love and war, family and nation, addiction and recovery, all with intelligence, sensitivity and a huge heart. A must read

Elegant and quietly devastating ... Dastur affords his characters such grace and complexity that they transcend fiction to become people you feel that you know and care for deeply

Deeply moving ... Set on a hill farm in north Wales, the cycles of the natural world are rendered with the same power and exactitude as the human dramas of love and loss which exist alongside them. Beautif ...

Dastur skillfully weaves a story about love and war, family and nation, addiction and recovery, all with intelligence, sensitivity and a huge heart. A must read

Elegant and quietly devastating ... Dastur affords his characters such grace and complexity that they transcend fiction to become people you feel that you know and care for deeply

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