Henrik Pontoppidan

Paul Larkin

The White Bear and The Rearguard are two of Nobel laureate Henrik Pontoppidan’s most acclaimed novellas: tales of personal, political, and religious strife, full of keen psychological insight, set amid the sweeping changes of late nineteenth-century Danish society. Pontoppidan’s prose is spellbinding in its taut, unvarnished grace, a quality translator Paul Larkin masterfully captures in this stunning new translation.

The White Bear is the odyssey of the priest Thorkild Müller, who becomes minister to a remote Inuit tribe in Greenland and is slowly integrated within the community. After spending much of his adult life in Greenland, he returns to Denmark, where his popularity among his parishioners brings the ire of the Church upon his head.

Newlyweds Jørgen Hallager and Ursula Branth are as different as night and day. The brash son of a poor village teacher, Jørgen is an avowed socialist whose revolutionary beliefs translate into his work as a painter of social realism. Ursula, on the other hand, comes from an upper-middle-class family and is politically conservative. Though each strives to change the other’s worldview as they start their new life in Rome, tensions rise, and misunderstandings abound. A searching examination of art and individuality, this version of The Rearguard is the never-before-translated 1905 edition, which elucidates with greater complexity Jorgen’s character as well as Ursula’s resolve to temper him with love.

The White Bear

By Any Means Necessary-A Journey With Celtic Bampots

In April 2003, the Stevens Report provided the first official acknowledgement of collusion between loyalist armed groups and British security forces in the murders of nationalists in Northern Ireland. This book argues that such collusion and associated conspiracies have been a central feature of the British response to the conflict in Ireland for more than thirty years. This response amounts to a Holy War, or jihad, in the name of Protestantism and the British monarchy.

Collusion, Conspiracy & Cover-up in Northern Ireland

A Very British Jihad

Albert, Dougie and Wim.

Edinburgh 1993: Sidney Dempsey is trying to understand life, love and why his football team have stopped winning matches. Glasgow 1994: The Celtic Board are under siege, the supporters are calling for change and the football team have stopped winning games, Read how the stories become intertwined as the battle for the soul of Celtic is in full cry and a team across the other side of the city look unstoppable, Trouble is, they thought that too...

The Last Pearl Diver

A hard but tender chronicle of flawed characters, bad choices, and contemporary Dublin life.

Paul Larkin

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