The Spinning Heart

Format:

Buy the book from:

Amazon Blackwells Bookshop.org Foyles Hive Waterstones WHSmith

Winner of the Guardian First Book Award 2013

Shortlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award 2014

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013

Winner of Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2012

'Funny, moving and beautifully written' EDNA O'BRIEN

In the aftermath of Ireland's financial collapse, dangerous tensions surface in an Irish town. As violence flares, the characters face a battle between public persona and inner desires. Through a chorus of unique voices, each struggling to tell their own kind of truth, a single authentic tale unfolds.

The Spinning Heart speaks for contemporary Ireland like no other novel. Wry, vulnerable, all-too human, it captures the language and spirit of rural Ireland and with uncanny perception articulates the words and thoughts of a generation. Technically daring and evocative of Patrick McCabe and J.M. Synge, this novel of small-town life is witty, dark and sweetly poignant.

_________

'Filled with light and shade, love and tragedy ... if it was a song you could sing it' ANNE ENRIGHT

'Donal Ryan is the real deal ... a brilliantly realised, utterly resonant state-of-the-nation landscape' SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

'I can't imagine a more original, more perceptive or more passionate work than this. Outstanding' JOHN BOYNE

'It's furious, it's moving, it's darkly funny, it punches you right in the gut' NEW YORK TIMES

Filled with light and shade, love and tragedy ... if it was a song you could sing it
Anne Enright

Donal Ryan’s precise and evocative debut … is a textured account of a community as it was during a brief moment of time. … unexpectedly tender … Ryan’s prism of life and lives is compellingly humane. … This is an exciting, relevant and believable contemporary novel about the lost and the wounded that listens to the present without discarding either the sins of the fathers or the literary legacy of the past.
Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times

There’s a powerful sense of place and shared history binding Ryan’s many voices, their inner and outer selves, distilling a linguistic richness comparable to Under Milk Wood. . . . Ryan’s novel . . . seems to draw speech out of the deepest silences; the testimony of his characters rings rich and true – funny and poignant and banal and extraordinary – and we can’t help but listen.
The Guardian

About Donal Ryan

Donal Ryan, from Nenagh, County Tipperary, has published seven number one bestselling novels and a short story collection. He has won several awards for his fiction, including the European Union Prize for Literature, the Guardian First Book Award and six Irish Book Awards, and has been shortlisted for several more, including the Costa Book Award and the Dublin International Literary Award. He was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2013 for his debut novel, The Spinning Heart, and again in 2018, for his fourth novel, From A Low and Quiet Sea. The Spinning Heart was voted Irish Book of the Decade in 2016. In 2021 Donal became the first Irish writer to be awarded the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His most recent novel, Heart Be at Peace, won both Novel of the Year and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Nero Book Awards. His work has been adapted for stage and screen and translated into over twenty languages. Donal has lectured in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick since 2014 and lives in Castletroy with his wife Anne Marie and their two children.

Details

Imprint: Black Swan Ireland
Published: 25/04/2019
ISBN: 9781784165000
Length: 160 pages
Dimensions: 198mm x 11mm x 129mm
Weight: 119g
Price: £9.99

All editions

The Spinning Heart

Format:

Buy the book from:

Filled with light and shade, love and tragedy ... if it was a song you could sing it

It’s furious, it’s moving, it’s darkly funny, it punches you right in the gut, the writing is effortlessly wonderful, and every one of the wide variety of voices rings utterly true.

Donal Ryan is the real deal … A brilliantly realised, utterly resonant state-of-the-nation landscape

Powerful and affecting . . . [a] superb, unforgettable and topical debut.

Humane, funny, moving and relevant, this is extremely impressive stuff.

A formidable debut, with snatches of the savage comedy of Patrick McCabe and a wistful cadence all its own.

[A] beguiling debut. … This may be the work of a debut novelist, but it is one who reads plenty and knows his business. … His salty, damaged characters give voice to the anger and heartache of a town snared by Ireland’s collapse. For this, we are in his debt.

I was hugely impressed by The Spinning Heart. There will be many novels which explore the effect of the crash on the people of Ireland but I can't imagine a more original, more perceptive or more passionate work than this. Outstanding.

About Donal Ryan

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter