- Published: 23 April 2025
- ISBN: 9780241998007
- Imprint: Penguin General UK
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 288
- RRP: $22.99
Glorious Exploits

















- Published: 23 April 2025
- ISBN: 9780241998007
- Imprint: Penguin General UK
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 288
- RRP: $22.99
With all the blunt humanity of Roddy Doyle, Glorious Exploits is a vividly conjured vision of the past. Madly ambitious, cathartic like all great tragedy, but shockingly funny too, Ferdia Lennon's outstandingly original début is just glorious
Emma Donoghue, author of Room
Sublime. Pitch-perfect dialogue, a fast-moving story that is both dark and lyrically beautiful, tragic and funny in equal measure. Glorious Exploits is an astonishingly original and gripping story of brotherhood, war and art. Ferdia Lennon is a fierce new talent
Rebecca Stott, author of In the Days of Rain
Bold and totally unexpected, I loved this book. A brilliant novel about friendship, the healing power of art, and why we must fight for our dreams. I was hooked from the first page
Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain
In At Swims-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien gave us cowboys riding through Dublin. Now, Ferdia Lennon gives us modern-day Dubliners living among the ancient Greeks. This is a very special, very clever, very entertaining novel
Roddy Doyle
What a voice! What a story! A darkly funny double act from Lampo and Gelon, sandwiched in between the transformative experience of theatre and forgiving your enemies. I loved it from the first line
Claire Fuller
A glorious thunderbastard, with a unique, stark voice that is expertly drawn. It is cheeky, contemplative and sly with an outrageous sense of humour and a massive heart. Lennon beats you with a club then whispers you poetry. It is harsh and fun in a way that few other books are ... A book like this is long overdue and very welcome. Thank the Gods.
Rory Gleeson, author of Rockadoon Shore
As thrilling for me as the first time I picked up a Kevin Barry novel. Glorious Exploits is exuberant, funny, lyrical and profoundly moving. It is, quite simply, a rare beauty
Sarah Winman, author of Still Life
Glorious Exploits is an agonising exploration of the cost of violence, for both its winners and losers. It is also a reminder of how dangerous and radical the making of art can be, as the attempt to stage Medea with prisoners-of-war in 412 BC comes to represent war's opposite. This perfect first novel is a tragicomic masterpiece. Ferdia Lennon has created a story worthy of the Athenians: mortal, maddening, heart-mending
Clare Pollard, author of Delphi
What a truly magnificent novel this is: in turns riotous, brutal and deeply affecting. I am in no doubt that Ferdia Lennon is the real deal. His captivating storytelling resonates with all the beauty of Euripides' plays.
Imogen Hermes Gowar, author of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock
Funny, thoughtful, moving, brilliant
Nick Laird, Irish Sunday Independent
Contemporary yet classical, vulnerable yet self-assured, a beautiful story about the very power of storytelling
Santanu Bhattacharya, author of One Small Voice
Glorious Exploits stinks of misery, despair, love, war, poetry, reckless ambition, terrible failure, and glorious triumph. It’s a novel thick with the stuff of the Classics, in other words. A delicious treat of a read. I loved it
Jon McGregor
I loved this book. Fierce, funny, fast-paced. Glorious Exploits brings the ancient world roaring to life in a brilliantly non-stuffy way - as if the figures on a Greek vase turned round, offered you wine, and started chatting. Thoroughly enjoyable, occasionally brutal, and shot through with insight, pathos and hope. Reminiscent of Kevin Barry and George Saunders, but wholly original - an unforgettable debut
Joanna Quinn, author of The Whalebone Theatre
A truly original, blackly comic novel
Sunday Independent
Gorgeous
Guardian
At once charming and convincingly gritty. The logistics are riveting enough but Lennon takes them to a conclusion that will move you profoundly, in several directions all at once
Mail on Sunday
A blinder of a book, narrated by Lampo in a modern Irish vernacular with all the wit to match. In fewer than 300 pages it also manages to pack in a heap of ideas – about war and art, brotherhood and community, love and loss. A true gem
inews, The Best New Books to Read in January 2024
'The debut novelist to watch ... Remarkable ... This debut is entertaining, vivid, original – and has a huge amount of fun turning the genre on its head ... The premise is irresistible ... Terrific ... A novel to be gulped down'
The i
This larky, spirited caper feels like a blast and a breeze ... A delight, both for the originality of its conception and its willingness to pursue such an eccentric idea to its logical conclusion’
Sunday Times
Quirkily original ... A tragi-comedy, in homage to Euripides, it is simultaneously shocking, touching, and thought-provoking ... Recounted in a lively Irish brogue, Glorious Exploits has brio and brass neck
The Herald
Immensely likeable ... Raucously funny ... The writing is beautifully controlled
The Observer
Wonderfully odd, riotously funny ... This superb novel builds to a page-turning crescendo that evokes the great tragedy the men stage'
Booklist
Engrossing, surprising ... He writes with a wit and an enchantment that very seldom waver ... Expect to encounter a heartfelt, convincing, poetically rendered world [which Lennon has conjured from] the ocean of his own defiantly original sensibility
Literary Review
One of the most original and brilliant Irish debuts in years
Irish Times
Brilliant ... I love contemporary Irish fiction and Greek tragedy, so how wonderful to find a novel where they are brilliantly paired. It is as hilarious, moving, and profound as promised
Rebecca F. Kuang, author of Yellowface
Entertaining and original ... You’ll laugh! You’ll cry! You’ll have a blast
Daily Mail
Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits will be hard to beat this year as a feat of imagination…A tragicomedy that will stand the test of time
The Irish Times – The best books of 2024 so far
One of the most original and entertaining and moving books I've read in such a long time. There are some books you read that you will never forget. And this is this book.
Annie MacManus
The characters speak in a wonderfully sweary, and very modern, Irish vernacular – bizarre and brilliant. The author won this year’s Waterstones debut fiction prize for the book earlier this year
The Independent – Best fiction books of 2024
The most reckless, exhilarating thing I read all year…The writing is supple and gorgeous, but it’s the mad ambition of Lennon’s project that will stay with me a good long time
Olivia Laing, The TLS – Books of the Year 2024
Passionate and distinctive
Anne Enright, Irish Times, Books of the Year
The one that really stands out for me is Ferdia Lennon's charismatic debut ... Brilliant and original ... Profound and funny
Edel Coffey, Irish Times, Books of the Year
A marvellous feat of imagination
Martin Doyle, Irish Times, Books of the Year
A poignant and moving novel, based on a historical event…Lennon weaves a story that intertwines themes such as friendship, love, compassion and the power of artistic creation
FT – Best books of 2024
One of the best debut novels of the year – it even received an award saying so – this is a ridiculously fun book…It's a poignant story about war, art, and friendship, while also being very funny
iPaper – The 30 best books for Christmas 2024
The invention and confidence of Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits, which brings a modern Irish vernacular to Ancient Sicily, makes him a writer to watch
Guardian – The best fiction of 2024
Tells an inspired story ... It turns into the funniest, most surprising, and most sneakily moving novel I read all year.
Slate, 10 best books of 2024
No ordinary book with no ordinary humour…its vivacious, intellectually engaged and acidly controlled bawdiness if a perfect read for this time of the year…Lennon is a brilliant new voice of limpid, knowing prose
The Big Issue – Big Issue critics’ books of 2024 (Patrick Maxwell)
Absolutely extraordinary ... I am so obsessed with Ferdia Lennon's writing ... Deeply romantic, tragic, funny, hopeful
Caroline O'Donoghue, author of The Rachel Incident