Niall Williams – författare

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BEST NOVEL IN THE IRISH BOOK AWARDSLONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 WALTER SCOTT PRIZEBy the author of Four Letters of Love, the international bestseller now a major film starring Helena Bonham Carter and Pierce Brosnan‘I love this book so passionately' Ann Patchett‘Lyrical, tender and sumptuously perceptive’ Sunday Times After dropping out of the seminary, seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe finds himself back in Faha, a small Irish parish where nothing ever changes, including the ever-falling rain.But one morning the rain stops and news reaches the parish – electricity is finally arriving. With it comes a lodger to Noel’s home, Christy McMahon. Though he can’t explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.As Noel navigates his coming-of-age, Christy’s buried past gradually comes to light, casting a glow on a small world and making it new.‘If you’re craving a novel of delicate wit laced with rare insight, this, truly, is happiness’ Washington Post‘Written with a turn of phrase that makes the reader want to underline something on every page’Financial Times‘What makes this so compelling and enjoyable is Williams’s transparent love of his characters and delight in his setting’ Observer

The international bestseller, now a major film starring Helena Bonham Carter and Pierce Brosnan. _________'A breathtaking affirmation of miracles and the power of human love' - The Times'A delicate and graceful love story . . . Extraordinarily rooted in the Irish language and landscape' - The New York Times‘When I was twelve years old God spoke to my father for the first time. God didn’t say much. He told my father to be a painter and left it at that . . .’ So begins Niall Williams’ magical tale about love and destiny.Strangers Nicholas and Isabel are destined for each other – they just don’t know it yet. As they each struggle to recover from the bruises of their childhood, a chance encounter on a remote island in the west of Ireland hurls them together.Tender, romantic and profound, the international bestseller Four Letters of Love established Niall Williams as one of Ireland’s most treasured writers, and has become a classic love story that testifies the forces of fate and faith.Now part of the Picador Collection.

Jim Foley loves his parents, his brother, his sister, Dickens and God; later, he loves Kate -- enough to make her his wife and to shape his life around her -- and later still, he loves his children, Jack and Hannah.Only Say the Word tells Jim's story, and the story of the people and places in his life, as he moves from childhood to marriage and fatherhood, from early days spent in County Clare to early adulthood in America, and back to Clare once more. Deeply personal and written in his lyrical, lilting prose, Niall Williams's fourth novel is about unspoken emotions, undying devotion and blind faith -- but, ultimately, about the redeeming, enduring nature of love.

A beautiful and moving novel about a young boy’s journey from childhood to adulthood from the bestselling author of Four Letters of LoveNiall Williams draws us into life in a small village in Ireland where a boy is growing up and making his first tentative steps to becoming a man. Questioning everything in an attempt to make sense of the world he is discovering through books, he is on the cusp of an understanding of what it is to be a man. But, when the Master, his caring old guardian, gives him a letter from his long-dead mother, his world comes crashing down.Learning for the first time that his father is not dead, as he had been led to believe, the boy must relearn everything he thought he knew. He sets out to find his father, piecing together the information he can glean from his mother's letter: he is a journalist for the BBC, he has lived in London, and he is a Muslim.The boy sets out to find his father. Arriving in London, disorientated and alone, he finds himself at the centre of a terrorist attack as the BBC is bombed and hundreds are killed and injured. Taken under the caring wing of Sister Bridget, a nun also caught up in the chaos, he refuses to allow this catastrophe to move him from his goal; he must find his father.This is the heart-warming tale of a young boy trying to find his way in a changing world, a world where no-one is safe and where terrorists seek to destroy all that civilisation holds dear.

When a loved one disappears, you can never be sure whether they are alive or deadJay once content with life in rural Ireland, left his childhood home and those who loved him to embark on the journey of his life in search of his father. Now Jay is fully grown and living in a mission hospital in Africa. Alone without his family or his roots, he has given up his quest.Back in Ireland, the man known as the master is recovering after a terrible accident. Sure that his missing grandson, the only person left of his family, is alive somewhere, he cannot rest untill he knows for sure.Both men are seeking, amid the human suffering they are surrounded by, to have their belief in life confirmed. And for both of them, its the kindness of strangers which brings comfort. From the travelling nun to the Polish builder, for the trusting truick driver to the released prisoner, it is these strangers who guide us on life’s journey and who help bring the missing home to each other.

Love is not easy, especially if you find the woman of your dreams and then lose her – as Philip Griffin and his son Stephen each discover in turn.Stephen is just a boy when his mother and sister are killed in a car crash, and his father never recovers from the accident: he wasn’t involved but is consumed by grief, his only desire to be reunited with his wife. Before that happens, though, Philip wants to ensure the happiness of his son, Stephen – now a grown man.‘As it is in Heaven, Niall Williams’ tale of love and tragedy, will leave you in tears’ Tatler ‘A bitter-sweet novel about passionate love giving way to commitment, grief to a sort of healing’ Irish Times‘A tender and sober novel with a faith in romance that is absolute’ Daily Express ‘Delicious coincidence and tragedy, as extraordinary lives unravel and intertwine’ Guardian

What invisible drama plays, what passes to and fro in the columns of air above them, none knows, but the disciples think: perhaps the time is arrived at last. Aged, blind and perilously frail, John the Apostle has walked ten thousand miles to tell of love. In a hundred years he has lived to witness sights and scenes that now cloud his mind. Of his followers, there are few remaining, banished with him to an island where they wait as storm clouds whip the island with rain. They wait for the world to free them from exile. They wait for signs that seem like they will never come. But eventually a sign does come and together the disciples leave the island. They embark on a journey that will change their lives forever: a journey filled with purpose and fear which will test their belief - in love and in each other - to breaking point, and John must face his biggest battle yet. John depicts the inner life of a man of faith and doubt with extraordinary poetic vision. Romantic, wild and passionate, this is the story of what it might be to love for a lifetime.

A wise, tender, life-affirming return to the beloved town of Faha by the award-winning master of Irish literatureThis is the why of us.October in the parish of Faha, County Clare – the beginning of the season of spirits. Four nights a week, Bat Considine calls on his neighbour Mossie Crowe; a beloved widower known to all in the townland of Faha as Ganga. They sit by the fire and, as Bat reads the newspaper aloud, wait to see which of them will die first. But this week, Bat will make a discovery that changes this routine forever. In the coming days, Ganga’s small community will gather, and his family travel home from far away; to celebrate a quiet life, in all its miracles.Funny, beautiful, transcendent and wise, O Now! leads readers back down the road that leads to Faha – and explores what it means to live a meaningful life, and what it means to leave it behind. Praise for Niall Williams‘I am utterly obsessed with Niall Williams’ Ann Patchett‘Makes the reader want to underline something on every page’ Financial Times‘Infectiously hopeful’ Daily Telegraph

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2014By the author of Four Letters of Love, the international bestseller now a major film starring Helena Bonham Carter and Pierce Brosnan‘A love letter to literature and storytelling’ Eimear McBride‘I am utterly obsessed with Niall Williams’ Ann PatchettIn her attic room, with the rain rushing down the windows, Ruthie Swain is trying to find her father through stories. Brought home after a collapse, she lies surrounded by her father’s library of three thousand, nine hundred and fifty-eight books. But Ruthie’s story, and the story of the Swains before her, is rooted not in these books’ pages, but in the land – fourteen rain-sodden acres of earth useless for farming, but teeming with stories.From her bed, Ruthie writes Ireland, with its weather, its rivers, its lilts, and its lows. The stories she recounts bring back to life multiple generations buried in this soil - and they might just bring her back into the world again, too.‘Extremely moving ... By the final chapter I was weeping’ Sunday Times ‘Dazzling … Paragraph after paragraph begs you to stop and reread it, to relish the lilt of it in your inner ear’ The Times‘Beautiful and enchanting … A novel that weaves a love of literature into its own moving tale’ Guardian

Francis Foley is a proud, stubborn man, and cannot stand to be beholden to anyone. Quick to anger and slow to forgiveness, it is his temper that, one day, costs his sons their home - and their mother. This will not be the last of their losses however: as the four boys and their father embark on an odyssey to find untenanted land they can call their own, their already diminished family is divided further. But if a combination of choice and chance cause the five to separate and scatter, each to their own road, then a series of casual encounters and coincidences offer some hope for reunion and - in Francis's case - redemption.Set in Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century, The Fall of Light traces the footsteps of the five Foley men. With elegant, elegiac prose, Niall Williams guides his characters through hazard and hardship, friendship, love and death, across the world . . . and home again.

'Poignant ... A meditation on life, love and the importance of nature' IRISH TIMESWhen they were in their twenties, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave New York City and move to Christine’s ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening and living a life that followed the rhythms of the earth. In 2019, with Christine in the final stages of recovery from cancer and the surrounding land threatened by the arrival of turbines, Niall and Christine decided to document a year - in words and Christine's drawings - of living in their garden and in their small corner of a rapidly changing world. Proceeding month by month through the year, this is the story of a garden in all its many splendours, and a couple who have made their life observing its wonders.

**Winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award****Shortlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award****Shortlisted for the Winston Graham Historical Prize****The instant Irish Times Top Ten bestseller**A heartbreaking and life-affirming novel about small towns and second chances - from the international bestselling author of Four Letters of Love‘I am utterly obsessed with Niall Williams’ Ann Patchett‘A rich and gorgeous book’ The Times, The 10 best historical fiction books of 2024‘Irresistible … A powerful pleasure’ Karen Joy Fowler‘Deeply compassionate’ Guardian‘Slow, rich, immaculate ... One of the most affecting books I've ever read’ The Times ‘A beautifully written novel about second chances and familial love’ Observer‘A story brimming with kindness and courage’ Mail on Sunday ‘A warm and life-affirming story about ordinary people going to extraordinary lengths’ Irish Times‘Line by line, it may be the most beautifully written novel I’ve read this year’ Washington Post_____________________________________Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in the little town of Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from his community. A visit from the doctor is always a sign of bad things to come. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love – and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.But in the advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter’s lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.'My own life feels richer having read it' Mary Beth Keane'A triumph ... There is so much to admire: the lyrical language, how landscape and destiny intertwine, the complex bonds of community' Ron Rash

**Winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award****Longlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award****The instant Irish Times Top Ten bestseller**A heartbreaking and life-affirming novel about small towns and second chances - from the international bestselling author of Four Letters of Love‘I am utterly obsessed with Niall Williams’ Ann Patchett‘A rich and gorgeous book’ The Times, The 10 best historical fiction books of 2024‘Irresistible … A powerful pleasure’ Karen Joy Fowler‘Deeply compassionate’ Guardian‘Slow, rich, immaculate ... One of the most affecting books I've ever read’ The Times ‘A beautifully written novel about second chances and familial love’ Observer‘A story brimming with kindness and courage’ Mail on Sunday ‘A warm and life-affirming story about ordinary people going to extraordinary lengths’ Irish Times‘Line by line, it may be the most beautifully written novel I’ve read this year’ Washington Post_____________________________________Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in the little town of Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from his community. A visit from the doctor is always a sign of bad things to come. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love – and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.But in the advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter’s lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.'My own life feels richer having read it' Mary Beth Keane'A triumph ... There is so much to admire: the lyrical language, how landscape and destiny intertwine, the complex bonds of community' Ron Rash

**Winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award****Longlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award****The instant Irish Times Top Ten bestseller**A heartbreaking and life-affirming novel about small towns and second chances - from the international bestselling author of Four Letters of Love‘I am utterly obsessed with Niall Williams’ Ann Patchett‘A rich and gorgeous book’ The Times, The 10 best historical fiction books of 2024‘Irresistible … A powerful pleasure’ Karen Joy Fowler‘Deeply compassionate’ Guardian‘Slow, rich, immaculate ... One of the most affecting books I've ever read’ The Times ‘A beautifully written novel about second chances and familial love’ Observer‘A story brimming with kindness and courage’ Mail on Sunday ‘A warm and life-affirming story about ordinary people going to extraordinary lengths’ Irish Times‘Line by line, it may be the most beautifully written novel I’ve read this year’ Washington Post_____________________________________Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in the little town of Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from his community. A visit from the doctor is always a sign of bad things to come. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love – and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.But in the advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter’s lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.'My own life feels richer having read it' Mary Beth Keane'A triumph ... There is so much to admire: the lyrical language, how landscape and destiny intertwine, the complex bonds of community' Ron Rash