‘Characters all but leap off the page with believability in these marvellous stories of life (and death) in Belfast’ Sunday TimesMelding his native Irish sensibilities to those of his adopted west-coast Scotland, these tales attend to life’s big events: love and loss, separation and violence, death and betrayal. But the stories teem with smaller significant moments too – private epiphanies, chilling exchanges, intimate encounters. Each of these extraordina...

The extraordinary new story collection from one of Ireland's greatest writers and bestselling author of Mindwinter Break.Bernard MacLaverty is a consummately gifted short-story writer and novelist whose work - like that of John McGahern, William Trevor, Edna O'Brien or Colm Tóibín - is deceptively simple on the surface, but carries a turbulent undertow. Everywhere, the dark currents of violence, persecution and regret pull at his subject matter: family lov...

"Bernard MacLaverty's powerful novel is a love story as affecting and tragic as you could want." — USA TodayWhen it was first published, Bernard MacLaverty's masterpiece was hailed by Michael Gorra in the New York Times Book Review as "a marvel of technical perfection…a most moving novel whose emotional impact is grounded in a complete avoidance of sentimentality…[It] will become the Passage to India of the Troubles." For Cal, a Northern ...

A rich collection of short stories by one of Ireland's contemporary literary masters.This long-awaited new collection from the noted Irish writer Bernard MacLaverty examines worlds in collision, relationships fragmenting, innocence coming face to face with real life and real death. A Catholic schoolboy playing football has a theological debate with a Protestant policeman; a chess game in Spain is a catalyst for grief and redemption; in the haunting title story a Be...

Shortlisted for the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award"[A] wrenchingly intimate depiction of a couple in the chilly, hibernal years of their marriage…[A book] with rare and unexpected beauty." — Wall Street JournalWith Midwinter Break, a moving portrait of retired couple Gerry and Stella Gilmore's marriage in crisis, Bernard MacLaverty reminds us why he is regarded as one of the greatest living Irish writers. Through accurate, compass...

"MacLaverty's tales are poised and beautifully balanced, outward yet intimate, graced by both subtlety and substance."— The IndependentA new book from Bernard MacLaverty is a cause for celebration, but Matters of Life and Death is more than that. It is the finest collection yet from a contemporary master of the form.Beginning with the sudden terror of a family caught up in shocking sectarian violence, and ending with the whiteout of an Iowa...

A Library Journal Best Book of 2022 in Short Stories"A deft and life-affirming collection by a master of the form."—Sarah Gilmartin, Irish TimesA collection of twelve powerful and moving new stories from one of Ireland's most celebrated writers.Tinged with melancholy but rooted in resiliency, the exquisite stories of Bernard MacLaverty's Blank Pages display the perseverance of the human spirit. In "A Love Picture," a middle-...

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread PrizeThe luminous novel by one of the finest living Irish writers, which Brian Moore has praised as "in every sense a triumph…moving throughout and ending triumphantly and joyously in its own special music."Grace Notes is a compact and altogether masterful portrait of a woman composer and the complex interplay between her life and her art. With superb artistry and startling intimacy, it brings us in...

SOON TO BE A MAJOR FILMA retired couple, Gerry and Stella Gilmore, fly to Amsterdam for a midwinter break. A holiday to refresh the senses, to see the sights and to generally take stock of what remains of their lives.But amongst the wintry streets and icy canals we see their relationship fracturing beneath the surface. And when memories re-emerge of a troubled time in their native Ireland things begin to fall apart. As their midwinter break comes to an end,...

" Lamb will move you by the grace of its prose and by its honesty and emotional accuracy. It is not easy to write about innocence in a world like ours but Bernard MacLaverty has done it. This is a beautiful novel." —John Gabree, NewsdayWhen Brother Sebastian, nee Michael Lamb, runs away from a bleak reformatory, taking with him twelve-year-old Owen Kane, the media and the police call it a kidnapping. For Lamb, though, it is a rescue of a formerly ...

A coming-of-age story of a northern Irish boy getting out from under the thumb of mother, church, and country.Set in Belfast in the late sixties, Bernard MacLaverty's new novel takes us into Martin Brennan's last semester of high school, when he finds old friendships tested and is forced to face the unknown. Before he can become an adult, Martin must unravel the sacred and contradictory mysteries of religion, science, and sex; he must learn the value of friendship;...

The long-awaited new collection from Bernard MacLaverty examines worlds in collision, relationships fragmenting, innocence face to face with real life, real death. A Catholic schoolboy minding goal has a theological debate with a B-Special; a chess game in Spain is a catalyst for grief and redemption; a Belfast man out walking his dog is kidnapped at gunpoint and told to say his ABC. . .Interwoven through the book are wry, elliptical 'stories within stories' about fiction and the w...