David Keenan: ‘For me, the names of places and streets in the North have incredible magic to them’
The Boyhood author talks about his Belfast dad’s faith in language, love songs being the greatest art, and how writing makes you question your sanity
By John Self
Defiance by Loubna Mrie: A gripping, devastating account of a Syrian woman’s revolution
Dublin Literary Award 2026 shortlist: ‘Literature at its most international, most ambitious, and most humane’
Seán Lemass, The Lost Memoir: Leadership, Ireland’s economic transformation and Fianna Fáil
Everything That Is Beautiful by Louise Nealon: a breathless romance and a torrid hurling tale
New poetry: John McCullough; Paddy Bushe; Raquel F Menéndez; Wendy Cope
Author Susannah Dickey: ‘With each book I find myself more invested in writing Ireland’
Bodily Fluids by Liam Hughes: Medical memoir aims to entertain but lacks nuance
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POETRY
EL by Thaddeus Ó Buachalla: An early contender for most ambitious Irish novel of the year
By Declan Burke
Communion by Jon Doyle: A genuinely idiosyncratic way of describing the everyday
By Lucy Sweeney Byrne
London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe: Mastery of timing makes this investigation a page-turner
By Mia Levitin
Mr Hoo and Other Stories: No judgment in these barrister’s tales united by literary mastery
By Éilís Ní Dhuibhne
Nonesuch by Francis Spufford: Distinctly Narnian in timbre – pure story of the richest kind
By Kevin Power
Among Communists by Sinéad Morrissey: memoir captures North in pressure cooker of weirdness
By Nicholas Allen
All Them Dogs by Djamel White: Magical writing which tenderises the most hardened characters
By Elizabeth Mannion
International Booker Prize 2026 shortlist: women dominate list that ‘reverberates with history’
By Martin Doyle
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Common Ground
How does a post-Brexit world shape the identity and relationship of these islands
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