Adrian Duncan

Michael, a retired bridge engineer, has lived away from Ireland for most of his life and now resides alone in Bilbao after the death of his girlfriend, Catherine. Each day he listens to two versions of the same piece of music before walking the same route to visit Richard Serra's enormous permanent installation, The Matter of Time, in the Guggenheim Museum. Over the course of an hour before he leaves his apartment, Michael reflects on past projects, the landscapes of his adolescence, and his relationship with Catherine, which acts as the marker by which he judges the passing of time. Over the course of the narrative, certain fascinations appear: electricity, porcelain, the bogland of his youth, a short story by Robert Walser, and a five-year period of prolonged mental agitation experienced while living with Catherine in Leipzig. This 'sabbatical', brought on by the suicide of a former colleague, splits his career as an engineer into two distinct parts. A Sabbatical in Leipzig is intensely realistic. With a clear voice and precise, structured thoughts, we move between memories of vast empty landscapes and memories of the failed and successful edifices and bridges Michael designed throughout Europe and India.. This narrator has left the void of his world in rural Ireland to build new environments elsewhere, yet remains connected to his homeland. Duncan's second novel stands alone as a substantial and compelling work of literary fiction

A Sabbatical in Leipzig

Geometer Lobachevsky

Paul, a young Irish engineer, follows Evelyn to Berlin and begins work on the renovation of a commercial building in Alexanderplatz. Wrestling with a new language, on a site running behind schedule, and with a relationship in flux, he becomes increasingly untethered. Set against the structural evolution of a sprawling city, this meditation on language, memory, and yearning is underpinned by the site's physical reality. As the narration explores the mind's fragile architecture, he begins to map his own strange geography through a series of notebooks, or "Love notes." Paul's story will speak to anyone who has known what it is to be in love, or exiled, or simply alone.

Love Notes from a German Building Site

'Not a huge number of literary novels tackle the world of work ... Out of rather unusual material Adrian Duncan has crafted a quiet, beautifully written, intellectually provocative and compelling story, an assured blend of mastery and mystery' Dublin Review of Books. Paul, a young Irish engineer, follows Evelyn to Berlin and begins work on the renovation of a commercial building in Alexanderplatz. Wrestling with a new language, on a site running behind schedule, and with a relationship in flux, he becomes increasingly untethered. Set against the structural evolution of a sprawling city, this meditation on language, memory and yearning is underpinned by the site's physical reality. As the narration explores the mind's fragile architecture, he begins to map his own strange geography through a series of notebooks, or 'Love notes'. Paul's story will speak to anyone who has known what it is to be in love, or exiled, or simply alone.

'When I was sent by the Soviet state to London to further my studies in calculus, knowing I would never become a great mathematician, I strayed instead into the foothills of anthropology ...' It is 1950 and Nikolai Lobachevsky, great-grandson of his illustrious namesake, is surveying a bog in the Irish Midlands, where he studies the locals, the land and their ways. One afternoon, soon after he arrives, he receives a telegram calling him back to Leningrad for a 'special appointment'. Lobachevsky may not be a great genius but he is not foolish: he recognises a death sentence when he sees one and leaves to go into hiding on a small island in the Shannon estuary, where the island families harvest seaweed and struggle to split rocks. Here Lobachevsky must think about death, how to avoid it and whether he will ever see his home again

Shortlisted for the 2023 Walter Scott Prize and the 2023 Kerry Group Novel of the Year

The Geometer Lobachevsky

Bungalow Bliss, first published in 1971, was a book of house designs that buyers could use to build a home for themselves affordably. It first appeared two years before Ireland was to join the EEC as a self-published pamphlet by Jack Fitzsimons from his Kells Art Studios in County Meath. He and his wife designed and collated it and printed it locally. Fitzsimons sold these books out of his car to newsagents, petrol garages and bookshops. Over the course of thirty years, Fitzsimons sold over a quarter of a million copies of his catalogue. The first edition contained twenty designs - the final edition contained two hundred and sixty. This guidebook of how to build your own home radically transformed housing in Ireland. Now, for the first time, author and structural engineer Adrian Duncan looks at the cultural impact that Bungalow Bliss and the accessible bungalow design had on the housing market, the Irish landscape, and on the individual families who made these bungalows their homes.,

Little Republics: The Story of Bungalow Bliss

'Duncan brings a new way of seeing to the world of prose' Irish Times Michael has been away from Ireland for most of his life and lives alone in Bilbao after the death of Catherine, his girlfriend. Each day he listens to two versions of the same piece of music before walking the same route to visit Richard Serra's enormous installation, The Matter of Time, in the Guggenheim. As he walks, his thoughts circle around the five-year period of mental agitation spent in Leipzig with Catherine. This 'sabbatical', caused by the stress of his job and the suicide of a former colleague, splits his career as an engineer into two distinct parts. Intensely realistic, mapped out like Michael's intricate drawings, this is a novel of precision and beguiling intelligence.

Adrian Duncan

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