Ripley Bogle is the debut novel of Northern Irish author Robert McLiam Wilson, published in 1989 in the UK although not until 1998 in the US. Written when he was 26, it is arguably his most acclaimed, winning the Rooney Prize and the Hughes Prize in 1989, and a Betty Trask Award and the Irish Book Awards the following year. Many elements of the novel are autobiographical; the author himself was born in Belfast, attended Cambridge University, dropped out and became homeless. It is regarded as a significant novel, producing "both a re-evaluation of Northern Irish literary identity, and an alternative perspective on the Troubles." Source: Wikipedia (en)