Partnership with the UEFA Foundation for Children to become part of ORIGYN's 'NFTs for Good' initiative ORIGYN to create digital twin NFTs of historic collectibles, including one of the toss coins
In Saturdayâs Irish Times, we publish Dirty Linen: a personal history of Northern Ireland, a revised version of my contribution to The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices, edited by Paul McVeigh, to be published by Unbound in July.
Reviews are Diarmaid Ferriter on The Partition: Ireland Divided, 1885-1925 by Charles Townshend Louise Kennedy on Real Estate by Deborah Levy; Claire Hennessy on the best new YA fiction; Sarah Moss on Snowflake by Louise Nealon; Paschal Donohoe on Together: 10 Choices for a Better Now Ece Temelkuran; Sarah Gilmartin on The Rules of Revelation by Lisa McInerney; Anna Carey on The Beauty of Impossible Things by Rachel Donohue; Paul Gillespie on State and Nation in the United Kingdom: The Fractured Union by Michael Keating; and Houman Barekast on Intimacies by Lucy Caldwell.
Books to look out for in 2021
Irish fiction
New work that has been a long time coming generates a particular shiver of anticipation. Small Things Like These (Faber, October) will be Claire Keegan’s first new work since her novella Foster, still a bestseller 10 years on. Her publisher says: “An exquisite wintery parable, Claire Keegan’s long-awaited return tells the story of a simple act of courage and tenderness, in the face of conformity, fear and judgment.”
Small Things Like These (Faber, October) will be Claire Keegan’s first new work since her novella Foster, still a bestseller 10 years on. Photograph: Alan Betson
Art imitates life and the novels of 2021 confirm just how true this is. Writers, like everyone else, found themselves confined this year and the result is the recurring leitmotif of family, pervading almost every fiction genre from crime to coming-of-age novels, from historical fiction right through to dystopia. Here are some examples from the leading titles of the new year. January
Billy O'Callaghan's Life Sentences (Jonathan Cape) is a family saga sweeping from famine Ireland right through to the 1980s. The Push (Penguin) by Ashley Audrain is a psychological thriller about a mother who believes her daughter to be bad, with shades ofWe Need to Talk About Kevin.