The Spinning Heart

(Paperback)

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This stunning debut has won major acclaim, winning the Guardian First Book Award and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards ; it was shortlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Winner of the Guardian First Book Award 2013 Shortlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award 2014 Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013 Winner of Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2012 'Funny, moving and beautifully written' Edna O'Brien In the aftermath of Ireland's financial collapse, dangerous tensions surface in an Irish town. As violence flares, the characters face a battle between public persona and inner desires. Through a chorus of 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. Technically daring and evocative of Patrick McCabe and J.M. Synge, this novel of small-town life is witty, dark and sweetly poignant. '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

Reviews

Filled with light and shade, love and tragedy ... if it was a song you could sing it -- Anne Enright
Its furious, its moving, its darkly funny, it punches you right in the gut, the writing is effortlessly wonderful, and every one of the wide variety of voices rings utterly true. -- Tana French * New York Times *
Donal Ryan is the real deal A brilliantly realised, utterly resonant state-of-the-nation landscape * Sunday Independent *
Donal Ryans precise and evocative debut is a textured account of a community as it was during a brief moment of time. unexpectedly tender Ryans prism of life and lives is compellingly humane. This is an exciting, relevant and believable contemporary novel about the lost and the wounded that listens to the present without discarding either the sins of the fathers or the literary legacy of the past. -- Eileen Battersby * The Irish Times *
Theres a powerful sense of place and shared history binding Ryans many voices, their inner and outer selves, distilling a linguistic richness comparable to Under Milk Wood. . . . Ryans novel . . . seems to draw speech out of the deepest silences; the testimony of his characters rings rich and true funny and poignant and banal and extraordinary and we cant help but listen. * The Guardian *

Author Bio

Donal Ryan is from Nenagh in County Tipperary. His first three novels, The Spinning Heart, The Thing About December and All We Shall Know, and his short story collection A Slanting of the Sun, have all been published to major acclaim. The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland), and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was voted 'Irish Book of the Decade'. His fourth novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, was longlisted for Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2018. A former civil servant, Donal lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. He lives with his wife Anne Marie and their two children just outside Limerick City.