Baby Zero by Emer Martin

Baby Zero
Emer Martin
Brandon

THREE people are Baby Zero - in each case a girl born in the year zero in 'Orap', an invented country not a million miles from Iran.

Emer Martin's novel is bracketed by a substory of one of the zeroes waiting to be stoned to death - a literary trick that's an annoying distraction to the great central story.

But Martin writes great characters here, and a great story, if only her editors had persuaded her to tell it straight.

Thought-provoking, brilliant, flawed, this is one of the novels of the year.

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