![]() But Ryan has set his new novel apart by subject and structure. And it’s in such cramped geography that Ryan, one of Ireland’s best-selling writers, finds everything he needs to traverse the universe of the human heart.įans of Ryan’s work will recognize this area and some of these characters from his previous novel, “Strange Flowers,” which was voted Novel of the Year by the Irish Book Awards in 2020. ![]() County Tipperary will be Saoirse’s whole world. Her distraught mother worries that “if she ever goes to America the yanks won’t have a clue how to pronounce it,” but she needn’t worry about that. Such is the abiding miracle of “The Queen of Dirt Island.” Here, in Ryan’s seventh book, unfolds the story of a small Irish village “that nobody’d ever heard of, tucked between a hillside and a lake.” That baby who arrives under such inauspicious circumstances is named Saoirse, which means “freedom” in Irish. ![]() But from that cruel soil grows a life of unbridled joy and affection. ![]() Her mother was ostracized for getting pregnant her father was killed the day she was born. The girl at the center of Donal Ryan’s exquisite new novel is born into animosity and grief. From a Washington Post review by Ron Charles of the book by Donal Ryan titled “The Queen of Dirt Island”: ![]()
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