Philip Casey was born to Irish parents in London in 1950 and raised on a farm in Hollyfort, Co Wexford. A member of Aosdβna, his poetry collections include The Year of the Knife (1991). He has published two earlier novels, The Fabulists and The Water Star. His third novel, The Fisher Child, from which this abridged extract is taken, completes the Bann River Trilogy. It is published by Picador next week at £14.99 in UK. Philip Casey lives in Dublin. He is the creator of Irish Writers Online, which includes a concise biographical dictionary of some 350 Irish writers: www.irishwriters-online.com