Sebastian Barry Livres

'As they used to say in Ireland, the devil only comes into good things.'Narrated by Lilly Bere, On Canaan's Side opens as she mourns the loss of her grandson, Bill. The story then goes back to the moment she was forced to flee Dublin, at the end of the First World War, and follows her life through into the new world of America, a world filled with both hope and danger. At once epic and intimate, Lilly's narrative unfurls as she tries to make sense of the sorrows and troubles of her life and of the people whose lives she has touched. Spanning nearly seven decades, it is a novel of memory, war, family-ties and love, which once again displays Sebastian Barry's exquisite prose and gift for storytelling.

One of the most vivid and realised characters of recent fiction, Willie Dunne is the innocent hero of Sebastian Barry's highly acclaimed novel. Leaving Dublin to fight for the Allied cause as a member of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, he finds himself caught between the war playing out on foreign fields and that festering at home, waiting to erupt with the Easter Rising. Profoundly moving, intimate and epic, A Long Long Way charts and evokes a terrible coming of age, one too often written out of history.

The play that established Barry as one of Ireland's most powerful contemporary playwrightsThomas Dunne, ex-chief superintendent of the Dublin Metropolitan police looks back on his career built during the latter years of Queen Victoria's empire, from his home in Baltinglass in Dublin in 1932. Like King Lear, Dunne tries valiantly to break free of history and himself. The Steward of Christendom took London by storm when it premiered at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in March 1995 with Donal McCann in the title role. It transferred to Broadway and has toured around the world."Sebastian Barry's beautiful and devastating memory play...will stay with us for many years." (New York Times)

From A Long Long Way, his Booker shortlisted novel about the Irish soldiers who fought for Britain during the First World War to his Donal McCann starring hit-play, The Steward of Christendom;

Following the end of the First World War, Eneas McNulty joins the British-led Royal Irish Constabulary. Tender, witty, troubling and tragic, The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty tells the secret history of a lost man.

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023, this novel has been celebrated as a masterpiece by the Sunday Times and is a top ten bestseller. Tom Kettle, a retired policeman and widower, seeks solace in his new home in Dalkey, overlooking the sea. His tranquility is disrupted when two former colleagues visit to discuss a traumatic case from his past, one he has never fully reconciled. Additionally, his new neighbor, a mysterious young mother, reaches out for his assistance. This haunting narrative explores themes of family, loss, and love, revealing that nothing is quite as it seems. The Irish Times describes it as "stupendous," while the Daily Telegraph notes its rarity among cherished novels. Readers have praised it as a captivating family love story that lingers in the mind, deeply moving and beautifully told. Comments highlight its tragic yet humorous elements, with many calling it "absolute perfection" and expressing awe at the author's exceptional talent. The balance of grief and joy is masterfully conveyed, making this a memorable and transporting read.

Entering the U.S. army after fleeing the Great Famine in Ireland, seventeen-year-old Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, experience the harrowing realities of the Indian wars and the American Civil War between the Wyoming plains and Tennessee.

Annie Dunne and her cousin Sarah live and work on a small farm in a remote and beautiful part of Wicklow in late 1950s Ireland. The world of childish innocence also proves sometimes darkened and puzzling to her, and she struggles to find clear ground, clear light - to preserve her sense of love and place against these subtle forces of disquiet. schovat popis

Jack McNulty is a 'temporary gentleman', an Irishman whose commission in the British army in the Second World War was never permanent. In 1957, sitting in his lodgings in Accra, he urgently sets out to write his story. He feels he cannot take one step further, or even hardly a breath, without looking back at all that has befallen him.He is an ordinary man, both petty and heroic, but he has seen extraordinary things. He has worked and wandered around the world - as a soldier, an engineer, a UN observer - trying to follow his childhood ambition to better himself. And he has had a strange and tumultuous marriage. Mai Kirwan was a great beauty of Sligo in the 1920s, a vivid mind, but an elusive and mysterious figure too. Jack married her, and shared his life with her, but in time she slipped from his grasp.A heart-breaking portrait of one man's life - of his demons and his lost love - The Temporary Gentleman is, ultimately, a novel about Jack's last bid for freedom, from the savage realities of the past and from himself.

Even when you come out of bloodshed and disaster in the end you have got to learn to live. Winona is a young Lakota orphan adopted by former soldiers Thomas McNulty and John Cole. Living with Thomas and John on the farm they work in 1870s Tennessee, she is educated and loved, forging a life for herself beyond the violence and dispossession of her past. But the fragile harmony of her unlikely family unit, in the aftermath of the Civil War, is soon threatened by a further traumatic event, one which Winona struggles to confront, let alone understand. Told in Sebastian Barry's rare and masterly prose, A Thousand Moons is a powerful, moving study of one woman's journey, of her determination to write her own future, and of the enduring human capacity for love.

Nearing her one-hundredth birthday, Roseanne McNulty faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mental hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. Over the weeks leading up to this upheaval, she talks often with her psychiatrist Dr Grene, and their relationship intensifies and complicates. Told through their respective journals, the story that emerges is at once shocking and deeply beautiful. Refracted through the haze of memory and retelling, Roseanne's story becomes an alternative, secret history of Ireland's changing character and the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and ignorance, and yet marked still by love and passion and hope.

Eneas McNulty, der als Sohn einfacher Leute um die Jahrhundertwende in Sligo, Irland, geboren wurde, ist ein naiver junger Mann mit einfachen Lebensvorstellungen. Mit 16 Jahren tritt er in die britische Handelsmarine ein und träumt von Frankreich. Nach seiner Rückkehr bricht sein Jugendfreund Jonno Lynch den Kontakt ab, weil Eneas bei den Engländern arbeitet. Nach einem Jahr ohne Arbeit findet sein Vater ihn bei der 'Royal Irish Constabulary', wo er mit Freiheitskämpfern in Berührung kommt und Zeuge einer heimtückischen Exekution wird. Von diesem Moment an gilt Eneas als Verräter und wird aus Sligo verbannt, mit einer Todesdrohung belegt. Mit zwanzig Jahren hat er kaum noch Hoffnung auf eine Zukunft und erkennt, dass er nie wieder eine Heimat oder Familie haben wird. Sein Leben wird zur Odyssee: Er fährt zehn Jahre auf einem Fischkutter vor Grönland, kämpft im Zweiten Weltkrieg auf britischer Seite in Frankreich und arbeitet an einem Bewässerungsprojekt in Lagos. Eneas ist oft erschöpft von seinem Leben. Erst im Alter erfährt er eine Ahnung von Ruhe und Glück, doch die Todesdrohung bleibt bestehen. Schließlich stellt er sich ihr und überwindet den Hass, der ihm das Leben geraubt hat. Der Roman vermittelt eine tief humane Botschaft in Form eines modernen Epos.

Willie Dunne ist gerade neunzehn, als er in den Krieg zieht. Von Politik versteht er nicht viel, auch von der Welt und ihrem Krieg nicht. Um wie sein Vater in Dublin Polizist zu werden, ist er nicht groß genug, aber gegen die 'Hunnen' kann die britische Armee jeden Mann gebrauchen, auch den kleingewachsenen Willie. Mit Tausenden anderer irischer Freiwilliger wird Schütze Dunne 1915 nach Flandern verschifft. Drei lange Jahre hungert, kämpft, friert und fürchtet sich Willie. Er flieht vor Giftgas, wartet auf Post von seiner geliebten Gretta, begräbt seine Freunde und seine Feinde. Für ihren Einsatz hatte Großbritannien den Iren die Selbstverwaltung versprochen. Doch während Irlands Söhne auf den Schlachtfeldern für die Krone sterben, schießen in Dublin britische Soldaten die Rebellen des Osteraufstands nieder. Mit Willie Dunne, dem Soldaten mit der schönen Stimme und dem unschuldigen Herzen, hat Sebastian Barry eine unvergessliche Figur geschaffen. In einer bilderreichen Sprache, die dem Grauen ihre poetische Kraft entgegenstellt, erzählt er die berührende Geschichte eines jungen Mannes, der sich im Niemandsland des Krieges verloren geht.

Hoewel Roseanne McNulty naar verluidt al bijna honderd is, gaat ze een onzekere toekomst tegemoet: de psychiatrische inrichting waar ze vrijwel haar hele volwassen leven heeft doorgebracht zal gesloten worden. Aan dokter William Grene de beslissing welke patiënten opnieuw moeten worden opgenomen en welke uit de inrichting zullen worden ontslagen. Hij heeft het sterke vermoeden dat Roseanne niet gek is en nooit is geweest – zij haar artsen al die jaren gemanipuleerd of beschermt haar geheugen haar voor een bittere en ondraaglijke waarheid? Gefascineerd probeert Grene haar verhaal te achterhalen.