Events, new releases, and a special message from Peig.
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You are warmly invited...
MoLI Virtual Launch | NORA by Nuala O'Connor
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Friday 9th April | 7pm, free.
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MoLI, in association with New Island Books, is delighted to host the online launch of Nuala O'Connor's latest novel, Nora: A Love Story of Nora Barnacle and James Joyce. To celebrate the publication, the author will be in conversation with Katherine McSharry, Deputy Director of the National Library of Ireland.
Described by Edna O'Brien as 'a lively and loving paean to the indomitable Nora Barnacle', O'Connor's new novel follows Nora Barnacle from her first meeting with James Joyce, through her years in Dublin and later across Europe. The novel tracks the Joyces as Nora is torn between their intense and unwavering desire for each other, and the constant anxiety of living hand to mouth, often made worse by her husband's compulsion for company and attention.
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Launch of IWC Novel Fair 2022
Thursday 15 April | 7-8pm, Free
The Irish Writers Centre would like to invite you to the online launch of Novel Fair 2022 with Laura McKenna, Aoife K. Walsh and Rick O’Shea. During this panel discussion, chaired by IWC’s Communications Officer Laura McCormack, you will be taken on a journey from self to shelf, from where the idea for a book begins, right through to the commissioning process and publication, and beyond.
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Minister Simon Harris launches Voices Matter, a new workbook from NALA for literacy students, and a companion to our Open Door Anthology Voices.
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On the 29th March NALA launched a new student workbook – ‘Voices Matter’.
This workbook is companion to our recently published book of short stories, Voices: An Open Door Book of Stories edited by Patricia Scanlan. It offers literacy students a range of activities from crosswords, word searches and comprehensions, with two activites for each of the 27 short stories. Voices Matter was funded by SOLAS and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science.
Download a free digital copy HERE or to order a printed copy call 1800 20 20 65 or email in...@nala.ie
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A VERY STRANGE MAN: A MEMOIR OF AIDAN HIGGINS
by Alannah Hopkin
Publishing April 23 | PB €17.95 | 9781848407930
This is a love story, set in the Irish literary world between 1986 and 2015. When they were first introduced by the poet Derek Mahon, Alannah Hopkin was an arts journalist turned full-time writer and Aidan Higgins, twenty-three years her senior, was a literary stylist, often cited as the heir to Ireland’s great Modernist tradition. They wrote steadily during their twenty-nine years together, but their careers could not have been more different: while Aidan focused on fiction and memoirs, Alannah prioritised work that paid the bills. This gave Aidan the most stable and productive years of his life. But as his eyesight failed and his memory began to fade, Alannah became his carer and had to fight to keep her own writing career alive.
A Very Strange Man is an exceptional piece of writing, objective and authoritative, personal, honest and moving. To accompany its release we are delighted to announce Aidan Higgin's bestselling memoir, Donkey's Years is back in print from April 15.
Both books are available for pre-order below, or ask in your local bookshop.
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LIBERTY HALL
by Michael O'Loughlin
Publishing April 30 | PB €12.95 | 9781848407978
Michael O’Loughlin was seven years old when the Irish trade union movement replaced its headquarters, Liberty Hall – the starting point of the 1916 Rising – with Ireland’s first skyscraper. This bold, seventeen-storey Liberty Hall expressed an aspiration towards the modernity which its builders envisaged as the birthright of future generations. Since then, as one of Dublin’s most iconic buildings, Liberty Hall has cast a personal and political light on the lives of citizens passing below, and formed the backdrop to O’Loughlin’s earliest childhood memories.
In this remarkable new book – a highly original fusion of poetry, visual images and prose memoirs – Liberty Hall becomes both a real and imaginary space, a physical building and a state of mind in which to be free; a place where the boundaries between verbal and visual, poetry and prose, past and present, city and suburb, local and global, all become fluid.
It is a book of numerous journeys: the ritualised crossing of the Liffey from North to South and back again; travels around European cities; and into O’Loughlin’s own family history in the first difficult century of the Irish state. He explores the emotional weather through memory, cinema and architecture, arriving in the end at Liberty Hall.
With its complex layering of themes, this unique new work by one of Ireland’s finest and most innovative poets is as bold a statement as the building itself.
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And finally...for the day that's in it, we hope this shared video will bring a smile to your face and offer a new side to our beloved Peig Sayers. Happy April Fool's Day! and wishing you a Happy Easter from all at New Island.
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Redisover Peig!
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'Peig Sayers Níl Deireadh Ráite / Not the Final Word'
ed by Pádraig Ó Héalaí & Bo Almqvist is out now.
Using remastered recordings of Peig Sayers made in 1952 by the Irish Folklore Commission, this book is an accurate, lively and illuminating testament to Peig's unique style of oral storytelling, with her recordings dictated faithfully into Irish, and translated with deft understanding into English.
Hardback accompanied by 2 audio CDs | €24.95
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