Small Things Like These
Claire KeeganClaire Keegan’s tender tale of hope & quiet heroism is both a celebration of compassion & a stern rebuke of the sins committed in the name of religion.
It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal & timber merchant, faces his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - & encounters the complicit silences of a small community controlled by the Church.
"A single one of Keegan's grounded, powerful sentences can contain volumes of social history. Every word is the right word in the right place, & the effect is resonant & deeply moving." — Hilary Mantel
"A story of quiet bravery, set in an Irish community in denial of its central secret. Beautiful, clear, economic writing & an elegant structure dense with moral themes." — The 2022 Booker Prize Judges
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Claire Keegan is a novelist & short story writer, whose work has won numerous awards & been translated into more than 20 languages. Keegan was brought up on a farm in Ireland. At the age of 17, she travelled to New Orleans, where she studied English & Political Science at Loyola University. She returned to Ireland in 1992, & her highly acclaimed 1st volume of short stories - Antarctica - was published in 1999. A second successful collection of stories -Walk the Blue Fields (2007) - was followed by her 1st novel, Foster, which won the 2009 Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award. Foster was named by the Times as 1 of the top 50 novels to be published in the 21st Century. Keegan is the current holder of the Briena Staunton Visiting Writer Fellowship at Pembroke College, Cambridge.