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The Queen of Dirt Island

The Queen of Dirt Island

Summary

Discover the emotional, bestselling novel about four generations of women and the stories that bind them, from the Booker longlisted author Of Strange Flowers.

'One of the finest novelists writing today... a haunting, exquisite masterpiece.' RACHEL JOYCE

'Endlessly surprising and incredibly moving' DAVID NICHOLLS

'Beautiful, compassionate ... Donal Ryan at his inimitable best.' MAGGIE O'FARRELL

___________

The Aylward women are mad about each other, but you wouldn't always think it.

You'd have to know them - in spite of what neighbours might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes - to know that that their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world.

The head of the family, Nana, is a woman who has buried two sons and whose life has been the family farm.

Her daughter-in-law, Eileen, is estranged from her own parents, having 'shamed' them and given birth to Saoirse.

And then there's Saoirse herself, eavesdropping on lives she cannot comprehend.

It is only when they must battle for the inheritance of Dirt Island - a narrow strip of land adjacent to Eileen's childhood home - that they truly understand the roots that bind their lives together.

_________

'The prose drips like honey off a spoon' SUNDAY TIMES

'Beautifully poised, sad, poetic and human....I loved every single line.' IAN RANKIN

'A generous mosaic of a novel about the staying power of love and pride and history and family' COLUM McCANN

'His paragraphs are unnoticeably beautiful, his heart always on show' ANNE ENRIGHT

'A life-enhancing talent' SEBASTIAN BARRY

'I would struggle to think of any other Irish author working today who writes with as much compassion as Donal Ryan' LOUISE O'NEILL

Reviews

  • This is a generous mosaic of a novel about the staying power of love and pride and history and family. While Donal Ryan is never afraid of "all the meanness and sorrow of the world," he also manages to excavate the thrilling beauties that hold us together. He manages, with wit and grace, to illuminate the anonymous corners of human experience and get at the underworld of our souls.
    COLUM McCANN

About the author

Donal Ryan

Donal Ryan is an award-winning author from Nenagh, County Tipperary, whose work has been published in over twenty languages to major critical acclaim. The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland), and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was voted 'Irish Book of the Decade'. His fourth novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2018, and won the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His novel, Strange Flowers, was voted Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was a number one bestseller, as was his most recent novel The Queen of Dirt Island, which was also shortlisted for Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Donal lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. He lives with his wife Anne Marie and their two children just outside Limerick City.
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