The Wolf - Tapa dura

In a bleak winter landscape a wolf is starved and weakening. He is the predator, and entering his mind, seeing the natural world through fierce new eyes, you feel the snow through the pads of your paws, what it feels like to stare at your prey and offer death, the texture of flesh between your teeth and the taste of blood in your mouth. But the harshness of nature, the death that stalks all of the wild forest, begins to challenge his supremacy, and his understanding of himself.

The Wolf is a novella of singular quality, taking the reader on an unforgettable journey - both with the wolf through a vividly drawn landscape, and inwards, deep into the mind of a killer. And when the wolf discovers a predator like himself on the brink of starvation - a competitor he should kill - he hesitates, and at that moment sets out on a path that will lead him against his will through strange ordeals, to find that before he can confront his own mortality he must face his greatest challenge - his own cherished nature.

A stunning combination of nature writing and fantasy, The Wolf forces us to see the world afresh through the eyes of a hunter in all its savagery, terror and magic.

The Wolf is Joseph Smith's first book. He lives in London.