Bernard MacLaverty

A Guardian / Sunday Times / Irish Times / Herald Scotland / Mail on Sunday Book of the Year Winner of the Bord Gais Novel of the Year `Midwinter Break is a work of extraordinary emotional precision and sympathy, about coming to terms - to an honest reckoning - with love and the loss of love, with memory and pain...this is a novel of great ambition by an artist at the height of his powers' Colm Toibin A retired couple, Gerry and Stella Gilmore, fly to Amsterdam for a midwinter break. A holiday to refresh the senses, to see the sights and to generally take stock of what remains of their lives. But amongst the wintry streets and icy canals we see their relationship fracturing beneath the surface. And when memories re-emerge of a troubled time in their native Ireland things begin to fall apart. As their midwinter break comes to an end, we understand how far apart they are - and can only watch as they struggle to save themselves.

Gerry et Stella. Ils sont ensemble depuis si longtemps que les années ne se comptent plus. Chacun a une forme d’addiction qu’il tente de cacher à l’autre : Gerry à l’alcool ; Stella à la religion. Le

Gerry et Stella. Ils sont ensemble depuis si longtemps que les années ne se comptent plus. Chacun a une forme d’addiction qu’il tente de cacher à l’autre : Gerry à l’alcool ; Stella à la religion. Le

Shortlisted for the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award "[A] wrenchingly intimate depiction of a couple in the chilly, hibernal years of their marriage...[A book] with rare and unexpected beaut

Beginning with the sudden, nauseating terror of a family caught up in an explosion of shocking sectarian violence and ending with the white-out of an Iowa blizzard and a different kind of fear: the fear of displacement, erasure, of losing your way and yourself very far from home, Matters of Life and Death is a book about bonds and connections, made and broken, secret and known. In the extraordinary long story, Up the Coast, a landscape painter discovers a place that makes her feel whole, finally, only to have that communion cruelly shattered by an arbitrary act of aggression an act that will resonate through her work and her life from that moment on.

For Cal,some of the choices are devastatingly simple... He can work in an abattoir that nauseates him or join the dole queue;he can brood on his past or plan a future with Marcella. Springing out of the fear and violence of Ulster,CAL is a haunting love stroy in a land were tenderness and innocence can only flicker briefly in the dark.

Una compositora extremadamente comprometida con una profesión que le ofrece más sinsabores que triunfos, debe regresar apresuradamente al condado que la vio nacer, Derry, cuando su padre, con el que no tuvo una relacion excesivamente buena, fallece. Despues de esta apertura, Bernard MacLaverty compone una novela de extraordinaria sensibilidad en la que los reencuentros con el pasado y con las personas que, de un modo u otro, voluntaria o involuntariamente, trazaron el destino de esta compositora, Catherine Anne MacKenna, se convierte en eje sobre el que desplegara una brillante exploracion de la complejidad del ser humano y de las relaciones personales. El trasfondo sobre el que se desarrolla la historia, una Irlanda empobrecida y dividida entre catolicos y protestantes, esta recreada con un crudo realismo sobre el que destaca el dialogo entre dos formas de entender la vida.

This is the story of the growing up of Martin Brennan, a troubled boy in troubled times, a boy who knows all the questions but none of the answers. This is Belfast in the late sixties. Before he can become an adult, Martin must unravel the sacred and contradictory mysteries of religion, science and sex; he must learn the value of friendship; but most of all he must pass his exams - at any cost. A book that celebrates the desire to speak and the need to say nothing, The Anatomy School moves from the enforced silence of Martin''s Catholic school retreat, through the hilarious tea-and-biscuits repartee of his eccentric elders to the awkward wit and loose profanity of his two friends - the charismatic Kavanagh and the subversive Blaise Foley. An absorbing, tense and often very funny novel which takes Martin from the initiations of youth to the devoutly-wished-for consummation of the flesh, Bernard MacLaverty''s new book is a remarkable re-creation of the high anxieties and deep joys of learning to find a place in the world.

On a promontory jutting out into the Atlantic wind stands the Home run by Brother Benedict, where boys are taught a little of God and a lot of fear. But as the outside world closes in around them - as time, money and opportunity run out - Michael finds himself moving towards a solution that is as uncompromising as it is inspired by love.

This is the story of the growing up of Martin Brennan, a troubled boy in troubled times, a boy who knows all the questions but none of the answers. This is Belfast in the late sixties. Before he can become an adult, Martin must unravel the sacred and contradictory mysteries of religion, science and sex; he must learn the value of friendship; but most of all he must pass his exams - at any cost. A book that celebrates the desire to speak and the need to say nothing, The Anatomy School moves from the enforced silence of Martins Catholic school retreat, through the hilarious tea-and-biscuits repartee of his eccentric elders to the awkward wit and loose profanity of his two friends - the charismatic Kavanagh and the subversive Blaise Foley. An absorbing, tense and often very funny novel which takes Martin from the initiations of youth to the devoutly-wished-for consummation of the flesh, Bernard MacLavertys new book is a remarkable re-creation of the high anxieties and deep joys of learning to find a place in the world.

The extraordinary new story collection from one of Irelands greatest writers and bestselling author of Mindwinter Break. Bernard MacLaverty is a consummately gifted short-story writer and novelist whose work - like that of John McGahern, William Trevor, Edna OBrien or Colm Toibin - is deceptively simple on the surface, but carries a turbulent undertow. Everywhere, the dark currents of violence, persecution and regret pull at his subject matter: family love, the making of art, Catholicism, the Troubles and, latterly, ageing.Blank Pages is a collection of twelve extraordinary new stories that show the emotional range of a master. Blackthorns, for instance, tells of a poor out-of-work Catholic man who falls gravely ill in the sectarian Northern Ireland of 1942 but is brought back from the brink by an unlikely saviour. The most recently written story here is the harrowing but transcendent The End of Days, which imagines the last moments in the life of painter Egon Schiele, watching his wife dying of Spanish flu - the worlds worst pandemic, until now. Much of what MacLaverty writes is an amalgam of sadness and joy, of circumlocution and directness. He never wastes words but neither does he ever forget to make them sing. Each story he writes creates a universe.

For Cal, some choices are devastatingly simple... He can work in an abattoir that nauseates him or join the dole queue; he can brood on his past or plan a future with Marcella. Springing out of the fear and violence of Ulster, Cal is a haunting love story in a land were tenderness and innocence can only flicker briefly in the dark.

On a promontory jutting out into the Atlantic wind stands the Home run by Brother Benedict, where boys are taught a little of God and a lot of fear. To Michael Lamb, one of the youngest brothers, the regime is without hope, and when he inherits a small legacy he defies his elders and runs away, taking with him a twelve-year-old boy, Owen Kane. Radio Eireann call it a kidnapping. For Michael the act is the beginning of Owens salvation. Posing as father and son, they concentrate on discovering the happiness that is so unfamiliar to them both. But as the outside world closes in around them - as time, money and opportunity run out - Michael finds himself moving towards a solution that is as uncompromising as it is inspired by love.