The Aylward women are mad about each other, but you wouldn't always think it. You'd have to know them to know - in spite of what the neighbours might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes - that their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world.
Their story begins at an end and ends at a beginning. It's a story of terrible betrayals and fierce loyalties, of isolation and togetherness, of transgression, forgiveness, desire, and love. About all the things family can be and all the things it sometimes isn't. More than anything, it is an uplifting celebration of fierce, loyal love and the powerful stories that last generations.
Author Donal Ryan will be in conversation with NYU's Dr. Kelly Sullivan about this new book.
Donal Ryan, from Nenagh, County Tipperary, is the author of five number one internationally bestselling novels and a short story collection. He has won several awards for his fiction, including the European Union Prize for Literature, the Guardian First Book Award and four Irish Book Awards, and has been shortlisted for several more, including the Costa Book Award and the Dublin International Literary Award. He was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2013 for his debut novel, The Spinning Heart, and again in 2018, for his fourth novel, From A Low and Quiet Sea. In 2021 he became the first Irish writer to be awarded the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His work has been adapted for stage and screen and translated into over twenty languages. A law graduate and former civil servant, Ryan has lectured in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick since 2014. He lives with his wife, Anne Marie, and their two children just outside of Limerick.
