A new Canons edition of the modern American classic An introduction by Irvine Welsh An afterword by Kurt Vonnegut

* This is a man writing and you should not read it if you cannot take a punch ...Mr Algren can hit with both hands and move around and he will kill you if you are not awfully careful ... Mr Algren, boy, you are good -- Ernest Hemingway * Powerful, grisly, antic, horrifying, poetic, compassionate ... [there is] virtually nothing more that one could ask New York Times Book Review * The finest American novel published since the war Washington Post * A classic portrayal ... stylish, atmospheric and moving Independent on Sunday * A true novelist's triumph Time * Profound Guardian

Nelson Algren was born in 1909 in Detroit and lived mostly in Chicago. His life was a succession of compulsive gambling, disastrous marriages and wild extremes - ranging from Texas prisons and skid-row soup-kitchens to Hollywood parties. He also had a passionate love affair with French feminist Simone de Beauvoir while she was living with Jean-Paul Sartre. Algren received the inaugural National Book Award for The Man with the Golden Arm. He died in 1981, shortly after being appointed as a fellow of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.