My life in books: When I am outside of my comfort zone, books eventually... get moved to a shelf
Rosaleen McDonagh's debut novel, 'Contentious Spaces', explores the inner lives of Traveller families on a site in Dublin over the course of one crucial week. Picture: Derek Speirs
Rosaleen McDonagh is an author, playwright, performer, and a member of Aosdána.
Her debut novel, , explores the inner lives of Traveller families on a site in Dublin over the course of one crucial week.
She will speak at Bantry’s Maritime Hotel on July 12, at 5pm, as part of the West Cork Literary Festival (westcorkliteraryfestival.ie).
I am currently re-reading Marilynne Robinson’s . The sadness of self-hatred is brilliantly done.
Also by Liadan Ní Chuinn; by Tommy Orange; by Louise Erdrich; and by Olga Tokarczuk.
Olga’s books have been on my bedside for a while. Intimidated by literature is a normal way to be. Also, when dipping in and reading excerpts, my belly starts laughing as if I’d forgotten how funny they are.
Olga is Polish and losing the nuance of words or sentences, even paragraphs, to translations is another worry. Eventually, both books will be taken in hand and finished.
I’m reminded of that old saying ‘laziness did I ever offend thee, no I always love to attend thee’.
When I am outside of my comfort zone, books eventually get moved from the bedside to a shelf.
Caleb Azumah Nelson’s ; by Marie Rutkoski Douglas Stuart’s ; anything by Kevin Barry, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Elizabeth Strout, or Anne Enright; by Bernardine Evaristo, by Anna Burns.
Returning to these writers is total indulgence.
Colum McCann’s . It’s a beautiful book about the Roma female poet known as Papusza whose crime was that she learned to read.
by Han Kang both repulsed and excited in the same moment.
Novels by Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, the essays of bell hooks, and the body of work by James Baldwin, all showed me that racism and great art is about people, not polemics.
Books written by my friends: Their success is mine by proxy. by Melatu Uche Okorie; Katherine O’Donnell’s ; by Oein DeBhairduin, Elizabeth Reapy’s and Seán Monaghan’s .
by Ta-Nehisi Coates, is a letter to young Black men, like Traveller men, who need to prepare for racism and the induction/ seduction of patriarchy.
Claire Keegan’s is succinct and brilliant, like the writer.
Maggie Nelson’s and Shon Faye’s made me understand embodiment with more fluidity and humanity.
Good poetry assaults and tricks, so the work of Carol Ann Duffy and Michael O’Loughlin (especially his book Liberty).
, a 1998 novel by Barbara Kingsolver.
Adah Price in is a magical, profoundly smart woman who happens to have an impairment.
Adah was hidden in the novel. It was a gift to find her. This character made me cry with sheer joy and howl with laughter.
is Jane Campion’s beautiful rendition of Janet Frame’s three autobiographies.
The film is a stunning achievement and introduced so many of us to Frame’s exquisite writing.
Audible — access made easy.
A duvet and hot water bottle.
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