Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse

Winner of the 2006 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature

Philip &Oacute; Ceallaigh, a native of County Waterford, has lived and worked in Britain, Spain, Russia, the US, Kosovo, and Georgia. He currently lives in Bucharest. Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse is his first book.

A performance artist opens his chest and displays his beating heart on stage. A young man walks through the hills of south-west Romania, where the locals have peculiar ideas about gold. On the morning of a medical examination, a woman tries to coax her husband off the roof. A smuggler pays off an old debt to his sister and resigns himself to a life of honest toil in the mine-shafts of his home town. A mysterious rodent named Brigitte enters the lives of two old men. And, in the astonishing long story 'In the Neighbourhood', the inhabitants of a crumbling tower-block go about their business, unforgettably. The stories of Philip &Oacute; Ceallaigh create a world that is utterly original and yet immediately recognizable - a world of ordinary people grappling with work and idleness, ambition and frustration, wildness and sobriety, love and lust and decay. Scabrously honest, screamingly funny and beautifully crafted, Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse is a brilliant debut from a writer who cannot be ignored by anyone who cares about the art of fiction.

Philip Ó Ceallaigh

An artist of extraordinary gifts ... already touched by greatness ... Of the dozen stories here, perhaps ten are so perfectly achieved and exhilaratingly confident that you feel Ó Ceallaigh is developing a form all his own

It's a long time since I have read a collection of stories so absolutely pleasing on every level ... Every story makes you feel that you're in the presence of a powerful, questioning intelligence

Ó Ceallaigh's command rarely falters ... a sharply funny collection

These new stories by the acclaimed author of Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse are at once visionary, hilarious and piercingly observant. Whether he is imagining a father and son walking the streets of Cairo or concocting a hilarious parody of a certain wildly popular inspirational author from Brazil, Philip Ó Ceallaigh is a writer who demands to be read.

Philip Ó Ceallaigh

Praise for The Pleasant Light of Day

An artist of extraordinary gifts ... already touched by greatness ... Of the dozen stories here, perhaps ten are so perfectly achieved and exhilaratingly confident that you feel Ó Ceallaigh is developing a form all ...

It's a long time since I have read a collection of stories so absolutely pleasing on every level ... Every story makes you feel that you're in the presence of a powerful, questioning intelligence

Ó Ceallaigh's command rarely falters ... a sharply funny collection

An artist of extraordinary gifts ... already touched by greatness ... Of the dozen stories here, perhaps ten are so perfectly achieved and exhilaratingly confident that you feel Ó Ceallaigh is developing a form all ...

It's a long time since I have read a collection of stories so absolutely pleasing on every level ... Every story makes you feel that you're in the presence of a powerful, questioning intelligence

Ó Ceallaigh's command rarely falters ... a sharply funny collection

An artist of extraordinary gifts ... already touched by greatness ... Of the dozen stories here, perhaps ten are so perfectly achieved and exhilaratingly confident that you feel Ó Ceallaigh is developing a form all ...

It's a long time since I have read a collection of stories so absolutely pleasing on every level ... Every story makes you feel that you're in the presence of a powerful, questioning intelligence

Ó Ceallaigh's command rarely falters ... a sharply funny collection

Books by Philip Ó Ceallaigh

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