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Memoir
Paperback
€15.95
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- Book Synopsis
- With a new foreword by Yiyun Li, this beloved memoir of an Irish childhood by the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of classics like Amongst Women is a 'healing book' (Sebastian Barry) 'McGahern is about as close as we get to Proust.' Guardian I am sure it is from those days that I take the belief that the best of life is life lived quietly, where nothing happens but our calm journey through the day, where change is imperceptible and the precious life is everything. Through the sun-dappled mazes of Irish country lanes, a little boy walks with his mother, naming the tangled wildflowers together - a memory that will inspire the rest of his life. This is the story of John McGahern's childhood: his mother's death, his father's tyrannical violence, his encounters with religion, and how, through his discovery of reading, his dream of becoming a writer began. 'A master.' Kevin Barry 'Timeless.' Sinéad Gleeson 'Extraordinary.' Colin Walsh 'Blew me away.' Colin Barrett 'A great writer.' Sebastian Barry 'Exquisite.' Andrew Michael Hurley 'Elegiac and graceful.' David Mitchell 'A glowing masterpiece.' Hilary Mantel 'The Irish novelist everyone should read.' Colm Tóibìn 'The preeminent Irish writer of his generation.' Anne Enright 'I'm grateful for every sentence he left in this world.' Donal Ryan
- About The Author
- Born in 1934, John McGahern was the eldest of seven children. Raised on a farm in the West of Ireland, he was the son of a Garda sergeant who had served as an IRA volunteer in the Irish War of Independence; his mother died when he was nine. He became a primary school teacher in Dublin but was dismissed when his second novel, The Dark, was banned in 1965 for 'obscene' content. Living subsequently between London, Paris and upstate New York, he and his second wife Madeline Green eventually settled back in his native Leitrim in the early 1970s. The author of six acclaimed novels and four story collections, McGahern was shortlisted for the 1990 Booker Prize for Amongst Women and awarded the Irish PEN Award, the Prix Ecureuil de Littérature Etrangère and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He died in 2006.
- Product Details
-
- ISBN
- 9780571399482
- Format
- Paperback
- Publisher
- Faber & Faber, (30 July 2026)
- Number of Pages
- 368
- Language
- English
- Dimensions
- 198 x 129 mm
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