Donal Ryan – författare

From the twice Man Booker longlisted author of From a Low and Quiet Sea'A force of nature ... a life-enhancing talent' SEBASTIAN BARRYWhile 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'Painfully moving ... Ryan's work has set a benchmark to which other writers will aspire' JOHN BOYNE, IRISH TIMES'Cements Ryan as the sharpest chronicler of modern Irish life' ESQUIRE

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2018'An engrossing, unpredictable, beautifully crafted novel' RODDY DOYLEFarouk'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._________'A thing of such beauty and compassion, a reminder of what the very finest sentences can do to shatter and then reassemble our hearts' KAMILA SHAMSIE'I struggle to think of a writer who has been so prolific and consistent in quality as Ryan ... Brutally honest, moving and often hilarious' GUARDIAN'Donal Ryan has not only bounded over a wall into new territory, but built himself a castle there . . . This is a superb novel.' JOHN BOYNE'Beautiful and affecting' DAVID NICHOLLS'Donal Ryan writes characters so well that as a reader you think 'I've met that man', or 'I know that woman.' But as a writer you simply wonder 'how does he do it?' From a Low and Quiet Sea is brutal and beautiful, carefully crafted portraits, deep and real, tied together, fashioned by a true artist. I absolutely loved it.' KIT DE WAAL

Winner of the An Post Irish Novel of the Year 2020Longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award'You have to truly love people to write like this' RACHEL JOYCE'One of the greatest novels of this century' SUNDAY INDEPENDENT'Gorgeously wrought' GUARDIANIn 1973, twenty-year-old Moll Gladney takes a morning bus from her rural home 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. 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._________'Outstanding ... Tender and beautifully written' INDEPENDENT'All the beauty and sorrow of life can be found in these pages' KATHLEEN MACMAHON'Exquisite . . . Beautiful' ANNE GRIFFIN, author of WHEN ALL IS SAID'Ryan gathers together the fragments of broken lives and makes us something new and beautiful from them' RÓNÁN HESSION, author of LEONARD AND HUNGRY PAUL

From the twice Man Booker longlisted author of From a Low and Quiet Sea 'Poetic, powerful and heart-rending' THE TIMES'An exquisite account of womanhood, friendship, prejudice and tradition that is both intimate in scale and awesome in achievement' IRISH INDEPENDENTMelody Shee is alone and in trouble. Her husband doesn't take her news too well. She can't 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._________'A joy to read, for all that it breaks your heart' INDEPENDENT'One of the finest writers working in Ireland today ... worthy of Greek Drama' GUARDIAN'A stunning piece of work, utterly truthful and emotionally powerful' JOSEPH O'CONNOR'Work of genius ... I was entranced by it. Buckled by it' SEBASTIAN BARRY

WINNER OF THE IRISH BOOK OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO NOVEL OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEARFINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR FICTION'Donal Ryan’s writing has earned him a place among the greatest names in Irish literature and this lyrical novel speaks to the very heart of modern Irish society.' Maria Dickenson, Chair of the IBA judges'Beautiful...a book full of love and hope, more needed in these days than ever' Kit de Waal'I am blown away by the ambition and scope of this exquisite piece of writing...sublime in both its sentiment and beauty' Rachel JoyceSome things can send a heart spinning; others will crack it in two...In a small town in rural Ireland, the local people have weathered the storms of economic collapse and are looking towards the future. The jobs are back, the dramas of the past seemingly lulled, and although the town bears the marks of its history, new stories are unfolding.But a fresh menace is creeping around the lakeshore and the lanes of the town, and the peace of the community is about to be shattered in an unimaginable way. Young people are being drawn towards the promise of fast money whilst the generation above them tries to push back the tide of an enemy no one can touch…Told in twenty-one voices, Heart, be at Peace is a heartfelt, lyrical novel that can be read independently, or as a companion to Donal Ryan’s multi-award-winning novel, The Spinning Heart, voted ‘The Irish Book of the Decade’.*****PRAISE FOR DONAL RYAN:'One of the finest novelists writing today.' RACHEL JOYCE'His paragraphs are unnoticeably beautiful, his heart always on show' ANNE ENRIGHT'Endlessly surprising and incredibly moving' DAVID NICHOLLS'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'Beautiful, compassionate...Donal Ryan at his inimitable best.' MAGGIE O'FARRELL'Beautifully poised, sad, poetic and human....I loved every single line.' IAN RANKIN'The prose drips like honey off a spoon' SUNDAY TIMESNero Book Awards Shortlisted, 2024Irish Times bestseller, August 2024

The tender, exquisite new novel from the winner of the Orwell Prize for Fiction and the Irish Book of the Year...‘Beautiful, hilarious and completely gripping’ RACHEL JOYCE‘Donal Ryan conjures up characters so solid, so complete and authentic, it immediately feels as though you have known them for your entire life’ JOANNA CANNONSomething terrible has happened to Jack but no one seems to want to talk about it.His uncles can tell him about everything from quantum physics to how to hunt for deer, but they can’t seem to tell him anything about their own sister or why Jack doesn’t feel sad for her in the way he should, or why Grandad tries to shoot Jack’s dad when he gets out of the hospital.Still, there’s work to be done in the oily wonderland of his uncles’ garage; there’s his beautiful aunt Rose to hypnotise him and his loving grandparents to console him; then there’s JJ, who wants to fight him one day and save him the next.But with so many questions, in a family with so many secrets, it is difficult for Jack to understand the person he is becoming. How can a simple boy learn to become a king?____'Tender, funny, mysterious and hopeful... a flawless gem' M L Stedman, Sunday Times bestselling author of A Far-flung Life and The Light Between Oceans'Warm, irreverent and desperately humane.' Jan Carson, author of Few & Far Between'So arresting, so captivating...a book that makes you look at the world differently, while at the same time cranking open your heart and letting the whole world pour in.' Annie Mac

'Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.' Zelda FitzgeraldLove 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. This paperback edition of How Much the Heart Can Hold includes the winning short story from the SceptreLoves short story Prize.

From the twice Man Booker longlisted author of From a Low and Quiet Sea'Donal Ryan, one of our most remarkable writers, has produced a book of short stories of such visceral power that they hit you in the solar plexus. He deals with the dark side of modern Irish life and produces sentences of titanic impact.' IRISH MAIL ON SUNDAYAn old man looks into the fearful eyes of a burglar left to guard him while his brother is beaten; an Irish priest in a war-torn Syrian town teaches its young men the art of hurling; the driver of a car which crashed, killing a teenage girl, forges a connection with the girl's mother; a squad of broken friends assemble to take revenge on a rapist; a young man sets off on his morning run, reflecting on the ruins of his relationship, but all is not as it seems.Donal Ryan's short stories pick up where his acclaimed novels The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December left off, dealing with the human cost of loneliness, isolation and displacement. Sometimes this is present in the ordinary, the mundane; sometimes it is 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 on to love, often in desperate circumstances.In haunting and often startling prose, Donal Ryan has captured the brutal beauty of the human heart in all its hopes and failings._________'Donal Ryan is a heartbreaker, his quicksilver prose laced with ... wistful rhythms ... These breathtaking stories explore human love against an uneasy landscape of violence and desperation... Donal finds hope in dark corners.' DAILY MAIL'Donal Ryan is a master of the magnetic first line ... His faithful subject is rural despair; the poetry of adversity, the baffling fortitude of intrinsically decent people ... This collection shows Ryan adding his own elastic yet distinctive voice to O'Connor's impeccable tradition.' GUARDIAN

THE STUNNING FIRST NOVEL BY THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF HEART BE AT PEACE AND STRANGE FLOWERSWinner of the Guardian First Book Award Shortlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award Longlisted for the Man Booker PrizeWinner of Book of the Year at the Irish Book AwardsWinner of the European Prize for Literature Voted Irish Book of the Decade in 2016“My 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 hasn’t yet missed a day of letting me down.” Now five times winner of the Irish Novel of the Year and No.1 bestselling author, Donal Ryan exploded on to the literary scene with his stunning debut, set in the aftermath of Ireland’s financial collapse. When dangerous tensions surface in a small Irish town, the characters face a battle between their public persona and inner desires. Told through a chorus of twenty-one 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.DISCOVER DONAL RYAN'S NEW NOVEL, HEART BE AT PEACE, WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR FICTION AND THE IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR ****'Filled with light and shade, love and tragedy ... if it was a song you could sing it' ANNE ENRIGHT'Donal Ryan is the real deal ... a brilliantly realised, utterly resonant state-of-the-nation landscape' SUNDAY INDEPENDENT'I can't imagine a more original, more perceptive or more passionate work than this. Outstanding' JOHN BOYNE'It's furious, it's moving, it's darkly funny, it punches you right in the gut' NEW YORK TIMES'Funny, moving and beautifully written' EDNA O'BRIEN

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

WINNER OF THE IRISH BOOK OF THE YEARWINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO NOVEL OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR'Donal Ryan’s writing has earned him a place among the greatest names in Irish literature and this lyrical novel speaks to the very heart of modern Irish society.' Maria Dickenson, Chair of the IBA judges'Beautiful...a book full of love and hope, more needed in these days than ever' Kit de Waal'I am blown away by the ambition and scope of this exquisite piece of writing...sublime in both its sentiment and beauty' Rachel JoyceSome things can send a heart spinning; others will crack it in two...In a small town in rural Ireland, the local people have weathered the storms of economic collapse and are looking towards the future. The jobs are back, the dramas of the past seemingly lulled, and although the town bears the marks of its history, new stories are unfolding.But a fresh menace is creeping around the lakeshore and the lanes of the town, and the peace of the community is about to be shattered in an unimaginable way. Young people are being drawn towards the promise of fast money whilst the generation above them tries to push back the tide of an enemy no one can touch…Told in twenty-one voices, Heart, be at Peace is a heartfelt, lyrical novel that can be read independently, or as a companion to Donal Ryan’s multi-award-winning novel, The Spinning Heart, voted ‘The Irish Book of the Decade’.*****PRAISE FOR DONAL RYAN:'One of the finest novelists writing today.' RACHEL JOYCE'His paragraphs are unnoticeably beautiful, his heart always on show' ANNE ENRIGHT'Endlessly surprising and incredibly moving' DAVID NICHOLLS'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'Beautiful, compassionate...Donal Ryan at his inimitable best.' MAGGIE O'FARRELL'Beautifully poised, sad, poetic and human....I loved every single line.' IAN RANKIN'The prose drips like honey off a spoon' SUNDAY TIMESNero Book Awards Shortlisted, 2024An Post Book Awards, November and December 2024Irish Times bestseller, August 2024