'Inventive and moving ... superb'
The Australian

'A startlingly ambitious novel ... astonishingly accomplished, bittersweet, poignant and funny. Paul Dalgarno has gifted the world something quite rare. A novel that is not only an immersive, engaging, and entertaining read, but one that makes us think. The year is young indeed, but I am quietly confident this wonderful novel might well be my favourite read for 2023.'
Readings

'Playful ... shimmering ... a delight ... [Dalgarno] is an author whose sense of playfulness establishes the terms and conditions of an eminently readable narrator: charismatic yet patient, moulded by an elastic sense of the plausible, and yet anchored by exactly the right feeling for the truths that matter most when confronted with the long view of a life in full.'
Sydney Morning Herald

'Often playful and always deep, an underlying sadness penetrates these pages. Then again, so does joy, with passages capable of eliciting laughter and tears in quick succession ... these reruns of life combine humour and heart with beautiful prose, in glorious detail ... A Country of Eternal Light overflows with beauty and pain, twin concepts with emotional tendrils that are irrevocably intertwined. A subtle sense of foreboding permeates this stunning narrative about the ephemeral nature of human life, culminating in a conclusion capable of cracking a reader in two.'
Artshub

'Prepare to have your heart broken and mended and broken again ... Paul Dalgarno writes with mischievous delight and compassionate intelligence. I gasped in sheer wonder on finishing this illuminating meditation on the demands of grief, time and love that fragment and bind a family; Mary Shelley would clap her hands in delight at such an audacious creation' - Josephine Taylor, author of Eye of a Rook

'Luminous, transportive, A Country of Eternal Light takes us on a metaphysical literary journey that interrogates the nature of death while exploring the outer limits of grief. Uncanny, evocative and droll.'
- Chris Flynn, author of Mammoth

'A balance of electric brightness and sequestered shadows - a powerful, rollicking and memorable narrative. A philosophical, emotional and entertaining work, startlingly imagined'
- Angela Meyer, author of A Superior Spectre