ISBN 978-0-9931443-1-8
218 pages / €12.95 / Pub date: 11 May 2016
Read extract here
Memory and Desire, the new book from Val Mulkerns, presents a selection of the author’s short stories and was published on 12 May, 2016. For a review by Anne Enright, Irish Laureate for Fiction in the Irish Times, please click here.
Val Mulkerns is a noted Irish writer and member of Aosdána. Her first novel, A Time Outworn, was released to critical acclaim in Ireland in 1952. She later worked as a journalist and columnist and is often heard on the radio. She is the author of five novels, three collections of short stories, two children’s books and many published essays and critical writings and lives in Dalkey.
A new edition of her 1984 novel, The Summerhouse was published in 2013, and Memory and Desire is now available in all Irish bookshops, and online from all good online sales outlets (see below) for those not living in Ireland.
Memory and Desire brings together a selection of the author’s stories from her three collections, Antiquities, (André Deutsch, 1978), An Idle Woman, (Poolbeg Press, 1980) and A Friend of Don Juan (John Murray, 1988).
The twelve stories take us from the cell of a rebel prisoner in 1916 through hard times in Dublin of the 1930s and into the changing world of Ireland in the sixties and seventies. The final, title story is a quintessential tale of the nineteen eighties. Author Colm Tóibín described this story as: “one of the finest short stories that has been published in Ireland for many years”.
The cover of the book is a detail from a work by Irish Artist Louise Newman and features a detail from a painting entitled “The Sea”. For some photos and an account of the launch held at The Writers’ Centre in Dublin on 12 May last, please click here. More details can also be found on the publisher’s website: www.451Editions.com
Since its publication, the book has sold out its first print run, and just this month, in the Irish Times newspaper’s Christmas feature, “Our Favourite Books of 2016”, author Carlo Gébler named it in his favourites nominations, describing the stories as, “scrupulous, quiet, unpretentious”.
This title is now available in all Irish bookshops by order through Gardners, and online internationally from:
Waterstones, Ireland / Foyles of London, UK / Barnes & Noble, USA / Booktopia, Australia /
Indigo Books, Canada / Schweitzer Online, Germany / The India Bookstore, India
Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.fr / Amazon.de / Amazon.ca
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