There Are Little Kingdoms
Kevin Barry
“The slow hours of the afternoon yawned and presented themselves with a certain belligerence. Those who go mad go mad first in the afternoons”
Available as Paperback, eBook
The debut short story collection from the winner of the IMPAC Award, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award: ‘The most exciting Irish short story writer of his generation’ Sunday Times
This award-winning story collection summons all the laughter, darkness and intensity of contemporary Irish life. A pair of fast girls court trouble as they cool their heels on a slow night in a small town. Lonesome hillwalkers take to the high reaches in pursuit of a saving embrace. A bewildered man steps off a country bus in search of his identity - and a stiff drink.
These stories, filled with a grand sense of life’s absurdity, form a remarkably surefooted collection that reads like a modern-day Dubliners.
“Could easily have been titled These Are Little Masterpieces”
irish Times
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“The most arresting and original writer to emerge from these islands in years”
Irvine Welsh
“Kevin Barry is among the brightest and most delightful new voices in Irish fiction”
Rick Moody
Kevin Barry
Kevin Barry is the author of the novels Beatlebone, City of Bohane and Night Boat to Tangier and the story collections Dark Lies the Island and There Are Little Kingdoms. His awards include the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize and the Lannan Foundation Literary Award. His stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta and elsewhere. He also works as a playwright and screenwriter, and he lives in County Sligo, Ireland. In 2019, Night Boat to Tangier was longlisted for the Booker Prize.
‘As quick-witted as a stand-up comic and as serious as the best of them tend to be, Kevin Barry is not only an inspired blend of Flann O’Brien and Anthony Burgess, he is an original.’
Eileen Battersby
The Irish Times
