Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

WINNER 2007 BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION

Paul Torday's Salmon Fishing in Yemen is an extraordinarily warm-hearted tale of faith, fish and Yemen; it is a beguiling story, one with added fly-fishing, unexpected heroism, late-blooming love and of an attempt to make the impossible possible.

When he is asked to become involved in a project to create a salmon river in the highlands of the Yemen, fisheries scientist Dr Alfred Jones rejects the idea as absurd. But the proposal catches the eye of several British politicians. And so Fred finds himself forced to set aside his research (and indeed his scepticism) and instead figure out how to fly ten thousand salmon to a desert country - and then persuade them to swim there…

As he embarks on an awe-inspiring journey of faith, the diffident Dr Alfred Jones will discover a sense of belief, and a capacity for love, that surprises himself, and all who know him.