A book such as W.G. Sebald might have written, had he been an Irish Engineer. In precise and penetrating prose, this novel probes memory and absence, and offers a vivid evocation of how love and trouble, between them, can support a life and frame a world. A quietly compelling novel from a writer of real daring and poise.' -- Vona Groarke A reflective, beautifully paced novel. -- Sarah Gilmartin A Sabbatical in Leipzig is by turn poetic and forensic, exuberant and melancholy. At all times, it is an entirely riveting, deeply felt musing on intimacy, loneliness and the nature of perception itself. -- Sue Rainsford A Sabbatical in Leipzig is an entrancing read, one laced with despair, regret and tranquillity. Even after one finishes the final page, its concluding moments will leave one ruminating for a while afterward. It will be hard to forget this examination of time. -- Adam Matthews * RTE * If more men thought and wrote as tenderly and honestly, wed have stronger, sturdier novels and fewer garish monuments to consumerism IRISH INDEPENDENT Spare and meticulous prose IRISH TIMES Precise and penetrating A quietly compelling novel from a writer of real daring and poise.VONA GROARKE An entirely riveting, deeply felt musing on intimacy, loneliness and the nature of perception itself.SUE RAINSFORD If more men thought and wrote as tenderly and honestly, wed have stronger, sturdier novels and fewer garish monuments to consumerism IRISH INDEPENDENT Spare and meticulous prose IRISH TIMES You move through this book, as though at a contemporary art exhibition It is slow and affecting and really quite beautiful.
Niamh Donnelly, Irish Times Duncans analytical prose and oblique approach to human relationships is both a relief and a recalibration of staid literary conventions we take for granted haunting and devastating
Dublin Review of Books A haunted and haunting essay on loneliness lingers long after the last few harrowing pages.
Anne Cunningham shades of Beckett [ and] calls to mind WG Sebald conjuring a deep and strange sense of stillness that hints at a discomfiting truth: this is a material world and we are merely passing through it.
Houman Barekat, The Sunday Times
