Donal Ryan

'Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child. He's seventeen, I'm thirty-three. I was his teacher. I'd have killed myself by now if I was brave enough. I don't think it would hurt the baby. His little heart would stop with mine. He wouldn't feel himself leaving one world of darkness for another, his spirit untangling itself from me.' Melody Shee is alone and in trouble. Her husband doesn't take her news too well. She doesn't want to tell her father yet because he's a good man and this could break him. She's trying to stay in the moment, but the future is looming - larger by the day - while the past won't let her go. What she did to Breedie Flynn all those years ago still haunts her. It's a good thing that she meets Mary Crothery when she does. Mary is a young Traveller woman, and she knows more about Melody than she lets on. She might just save Melody's life. Donal Ryan's new novel is breathtaking, vivid, moving and redemptive.

All We Shall Know

'An engrossing, unpredictable, beautifully crafted novel' RODDY DOYLE Farouk's country has been torn apart by war. Lampy's heart has been laid waste by Chloe. John's past torments him as he nears his end. The refugee. The dreamer. The penitent. From war-torn Syria to small-town Ireland, three men, scarred by all they have loved and lost, are searching for some version of home. Each is drawn towards a powerful reckoning, one that will bring them together in the most unexpected of ways.

From a Low and Quiet Sea

In 1973, twenty-year-old Moll Gladney takes a morning bus from her rural home and disappears. 0Bewildered and distraught, Paddy and Kit must confront an unbearable prospect: that they will never see their daughter again.0Five years later, Moll returns. What - and who - she brings with her will change the course of her family's life forever.0Beautiful and devastating, this exploration of loss, alienation and the redemptive power of love reaffirms Donal Ryan as one of the most talented and empathetic writers at work today.

Strange Flowers

“From its opening pages, this book exerts a quiet, propulsive hold over its reader. The three generations of Aylward women will break your heart and then put it back together again.” –Maggie O'Farrell "This is a generous mosaic of a novel about the staying power of love and pride and history and family." –Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon and Let The Great World Spin From the multi-award-winning and internationally bestselling author Donal Ryan, a searing, jubilant story about four generations of women and fierce love The Aylward women of Nenagh, Tipperary, are mad about each other, but you wouldn’t always think it. You’d have to know them to know that—in spite of what the neighbors might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes—their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world. Their story begins at an end and ends at a beginning. It involves wives and widows, gunrunners and gougers, sinners and saints. It’s a story of terrible betrayals and fierce loyalties, of isolation and togetherness, of transgression, forgiveness, desire, and love. Of all the things family can be and all the things it sometimes isn’t. The Queen of Dirt Island is an uplifting celebration of fierce, loyal love and the powerful stories that bind generations together.

A Novel

The Queen of Dirt Island

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 âeoeMy father still lives back the road past the weir in the cottage I was reared in. I go there every day to see is he dead and every day he lets me down. He hasnâe(tm)t yet missed a day of letting me down.âe In the aftermath of Irelandâe(tm)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. Donal Ryanâe(tm)s brilliantly realized debut announces a stunning new voice in literary fiction.

The Spinning Heart

From the twice Man Booker longlisted author of From a Low and Quiet Sea 'A force of nature ... a life-enhancing talent' Sebastian Barry While the Celtic Tiger rages, and greed becomes the norm, Johnsey Cunliffe desperately tries to hold on to the familiar, even as he loses those who all his life have protected him from a harsh world. Village bullies and scheming land-grabbers stand in his way, no matter where he turns. Set over the course of one year of Johnsey’s life, The Thing About December breathes with his grief, bewilderment, humour and agonizing self-doubt. This is a heart-twisting tale of a lonely man struggling to make sense of a world moving faster than he is. Donal Ryan’s award-winning debut, The Spinning Heart, garnered unprecedented acclaim, and The Thing About December confirms his status as one of the best writers of his generation. 'His paragraphs are unnoticeably beautiful, his heart always on show, and he writes with a social accuracy that is devastating' Anne Enright 'Compelling and heartbreaking . . beautiful, yet simple and utterly convincing' Sunday Times

The Thing About December

Donal Ryan's short stories pick up where his acclaimed novels The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December left off, dealing with dramas set in motion by loneliness and displacement and revealing stories of passion and desire where less astute observers might fail to detect the humanity that roils beneath the surface. Sometimes these dramas are found in ordinary, mundane situations; sometimes they are triggered by a fateful encounter or a tragic decision. At the heart of these stories, crucially, is how people are drawn to each other and cling to love when and where it can be found. In a number of the these stories, emotional bonds are forged by traumatic events caused by one of the characters - between an old man and the frightened young burglar left to guard him while his brother is beaten; between another young man and the mother of a girl whose death he caused when he crashed his car; between a lonely middle-aged shopkeeper and her assistant. Disconnection and new discoveries pervade stories involving emigration (an Irish priest in war-torn Syria) or immigration (an African refugee in Ireland). Some of the stories are set in the same small town in rural Ireland as the novels, with names that will be familiar to Ryan's readers. In haunting prose, Donal Ryan has captured the brutal beauty of the human heart in all its failings, hopes and quiet triumphs.

Stories

A Slanting of the Sun

Bernardine Evaristo

Nikesh Shukla

Carys Bray

Grace McCleen

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

D. W. Wilson

'Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.' Zelda Fitzgerald Love is not a singular concept. In this collection, seven award-winning authors explore seven concepts of love: from Philautia, self-love, to Agape, love for humanity; and from Storge, a natural affection for family, to Mania, a frenzied, obsessive love. Seven authors; seven short stories; seven flashes of love. The publication of How Much the Heart Can Hold is heralded by a Sceptre short story competition. The winning story, based on a concept of love, will be published in the paperback edition.

Seven Stories on Love

How Much the Heart Can Hold

The rural residents of the county of Tipperary deal in their own ways with the financial collapse of the Irish economy.

The spinning heart

De levens van een Syrische arts, een jonge Ierse chauffeur van een bejaardenbusje en een oudere, Ierse lobbyist komen op verrassende wijze bij elkaar.

Over een vlakke, kalme zee

El estallido de la burbuja inmobiliaria ha dejado secuelas en un pequeǫ pueblo irlandš, donde la prosperidad de los l︢timos aǫs ha dado paso a urbanizaciones fantasma, desempleo y desesperacin̤. La quiebra de la constructora local, el asesinato de Frank Mahon, viejo malhumorado y de lengua viperina, y el secuestro del pequeǫ Dylan han conmocionado a los vecinos de esta poblacin̤ poco habituada a salir en los perid̤icos.

Corazón giratorio

"A breathtaking and redemptive novel from the award-winning and Man Bookernominated author Donal Ryan Melody Shee is alone and in trouble. At 33 years-old, she finds herself pregnant with the child of a 17 year-old Traveller boy, Martin Toppy, and not by her husband Pat. Melody was teaching Martin to read, but now he's gone, and Pat leaves too, full of rage. She's trying to stay in the moment, but the future is looming, while the past won't let her go. It's a good thing that she meets Mary Crothery when she does. Mary is a bold young Traveller woman, and she knows more about Melody than she lets on. She might just save Melody's life. Following the nine months of her pregnancy, All We Shall Know unfolds with emotional immediacy in Melody's fierce, funny, and unforgettable voice, as she contends with her choices, past and present"--

All we shall know

AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARD NOVEL OF THE YEAR Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Awards “Mr. Ryan writes conspicuously beautiful prose… The fleeting happiness and abiding melancholy of the asymmetry, heightened by the intimately rendered surroundings, brings out Mr. Ryan’s most sensuous and emotive writing.” –The Wall Street Journal From the Booker nominated author of From a Low and Quiet Sea, Donal Ryan's new novel follows the Gladney family across three generations seeking the true meaning of what it is to find home and love. In 1973, twenty-year-old Moll Gladney takes a morning bus from her rural home in Ireland and disappears. Bewildered and distraught, Paddy and Kit must confront an unbearable prospect: that they will never see their daughter again. Five years later, Moll returns from London. What - and who - she brings with her will change the course of her family's life forever. Beautiful and devastating, this exploration of loss, alienation and the redemptive power of love reaffirms Donal Ryan as one of the most talented and empathetic writers at work today.

The Spinning Heart Hardcover Donal Ryan

První vydaná kniha, která svého autora ihned proslavila, je volným pokračováním jeho prvotiny Prosinec už je takovej (The Thing About December) a odehrává se ve stejném místě po deseti letech. Téměř detektivní příběh ze současného Irska, vyprávěný v jedenadvaceti kapitolkách jedenadvaceti obyvateli nejmenovaného městečka, jejichž osudy se prolínají. Každá postava svou osobní zpovědí přidává další nečekaná fakta, čtenář si buduje vlastní představu a názor, který však musí několikrát změnit. Výsledná mozaika pak nejen objasňuje zápletku, ale podává zároveň velmi působivý a citlivý obraz lidských vztahů pod náporem hospodářského krize, která Irsko postihla po letech nebývalé konjunktury první dekády tohoto století.

Srdce na obrtlíku

Set during the Celtic Tiger, this is another “fierce” novel “that [strikes] at the heart of what it has meant to be Irish in recent times,” from the critically acclaimed author of The Spinning Heart (John Boyne, author of The Heart’s Invisible Furies) While the Celtic Tiger rages, and greed becomes the norm, Johnsey Cunliffe desperately tries to hold on to the familiar, even as he loses those who all his life have protected him from a harsh world. Following the deaths first of his father and then his mother, Johnsey inherits the family farm, and a healthy bank account, both of which he proves incapable of managing on his own. Village bullies and scheming land-grabbers stand in his way, no matter where he turns. Though companionship, and the promise of love, enter his life as a result of a hospital stay following a brutal beating, Johnsey remains a lonely man struggling to keep up with a world that moves faster than he does. Set over the course of one year of Johnsey Cunliffe's life, The Thing About December breathes with Johnsey's bewilderment, humor and agonizing self-doubt. Readers will fall in love with Johnsey in a bittersweet tale that serves as a poignant reminder that we are surrounded in life by simple souls who are nonetheless more insightful and wise than we realize, or can even imagine.

While the Celtic Tiger rages, and greed becomes the norm, Johnsey Cunliffe desperately tries to hold on to the familiar, even as he loses those who all his life have protected him from a harsh world. Following the deaths first of his father and then his mother, Johnsey inherits the family farm, and a healthy bank account, both of which he proves incapable of managing on his own. Village bullies and scheming land-grabbers stand in his way, no matter where he turns. Though companionship, and the promise of love, enter his life as a result of a hospital stay following a brutal beating, Johnsey remains a lonely man struggling to keep up with a world that moves faster than he does. Set over the course of one year of Johnsey Cunliffe's life, The Thing About December breathes with Johnsey's bewilderment, humor and agonizing self-doubt. Readers will fall in love with Johnsey in a bittersweet tale that serves as a poignant reminder that we are surrounded in life by simple souls who are nonetheless more insightful and wise than we realize, or can even imagine.

Donal Ryan

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