A City Burning

Set in Ulster, south Wales and Italy, many of the stories in A City Burning concern a point of choice and decision. Characters reach a turning point at which their lives can become fuller and more meaningful, but at a cost to themselves. In others they bear witness to an event must decide whether to become involved or pass by. They could be ordinary people in Belfast during the Troubles or their aftermath, or during the Covid-19 pandemic, or priests facing a new religious reality in their ministries, or family members in a domestic situation in south Wales. Characters are forced to look into themselves; each must make a choice of how to live their future lives. These stories are vividly written and authentically realised, with Graham’s eye for a telling detail and instinct for a loaded silence drawing in the reader. She has created memorable characters and situations which linger in the mind long after the story has ended. “In this powerful collection, Angela Graham shows herself master of the angle of vision: her tales capture the mercurial moment when a person’s world is changed forever, in a road or room, against a landscape, seascape or starscape, at the graveside or (as in the towering story, ‘Life-Task’) at a forsaken railway station in the aftermath of war.” – Stevie Davies “Angela Graham is a brilliant new voice. This is literature that deserves to last." – Kate Hamer “A debut collection of tales remarkable for its verve, depth and range, taking us from backstage at the theatre through priestly adventures in Rome to the dark tragedies of troubled Belfast streets. All conjured up in bright words and sentences that consistently illuminate. Twenty-six stories, one singular voice.” – Jon Gower