'Vann's prose is as pure as a gulp of water from an Alaskan stream.' Financial Times '[Vann] is the real thing-a mature, risk-taking and fantastically adept fiction writer who dares go to the darkest places, explore their most appalling corners.' Observer 'One of the most exciting writers at work today.' Australian 'One of the most darkly talented and unsettling writers working today.' Guardian 'Vann is a brave writer, daring to write about and depict things that most other authors would baulk at, but that's what makes him so good-that unflinching eye for the darkness you could potentially find in any of us, given the wrong chain of events.' Independent 'David Vann has been one of the most thrilling discoveries of the past decade or so.' Stephen Romei 'David Vann's work has a spare, parable-like quality...[he] writes with deft control and a gift for prose propelled as effortlessly as a school of fish.' Financial Times 'David Vann is surely one of the most powerful writers working today.' New Zealand Herald 'Vann's provocative prose is filled with a sense of wonder and beauty, even when the lives he describes are tragic.' LA Times 'Aquarium feels like a soft thing lined with blood: a small, resolutely inward-looking book, full or ornate sentences with a darkness that frequently makes you want to squint and flinch as you turn the pages.' Guardian

David Vann is an internationally bestselling author published in twenty-one languages. He is the winner of fifteen prizes and his books have appeared on seventy Best Books lists in a dozen countries. He is a professor at the University of Warwick in England and lives in New Zealand half of the year.