Ali Shaw

The Man who Rained – Reviews

“Shaw can write, there’s no doubt about that, and he has found the perfect setting for his folkloric prose in his fairy-tale creation, bringing it, in all its strangeness, to quiveringly tangible life, saturating his story with the weather … The Man who Rained is delicately crafted, just like its predecessor, its story haunting and thoroughly, charmingly different.”  – The Sunday Times

“A wonderful, atmospheric novel that reads like an adult fairytale.” – Red Magazine

“Some passages are breathtaking, particularly the precise, unsentimental details of a goat’s dismemberment and an account of a violent attack – Shaw knows how to balance beauty and terror.” – Guardian

“The Man Who Rained is ultimately a tale of liberation and impossible love and it’s this, along with the Oxford-based author’s economical yet enchanting way with words, that works the real magic here.” – The List

“Like all the best olden tales, Shaw gives us a fable. It is a love story. It is thought experiment about what the world might be, if it were not what we think it is. It is a story about family, the ties that bind and whether they should. It is about superstition and faith and the difference between the two. It is a story about learning from history and hanging on to the past and the difference between the two. It is about fear, and power … It’s fabulous: the most engaging, uplifting and surprisingly emotional thing I’ve read in a good while.” – The Book Bag