The Pen Friend by Ciaran Carson

The Pen Friend by Ciaran Carson

More than twenty years after the end of their love affair, Gabriel receives thirteen postcards from old flame Nina, each one provoking memories about their life together in 1980s Belfast and reveries on subjects such as the Troubles, his father, Esperanto and fountain pens.

This man writes like an angel

-- Russell Hoban

a strange and wonderful novel that confirns Carson as one of Ireland's most exciting authors

Carson is a conjurer with language... His eye lighs on an astonishing miscellany of fact and fantasy, but remains sharply focused throughout.

This novel is an original creation. Technically complex but oddly simple, arcanely information, humorously puzzling, sensible, sensational, compassionate, it deserves to win whatever prizes are going. For the Man Booker jury, here's a book and a man.

fascinating and absorbing from beginning to end

Carson has already done for poetry in Ireland what he is now doing for fiction, changing its contours, extending its borders.

Ciaran Carson was born in Belfast in 1948. He is the author of nine collections of poems, including Belfast Confetti, First Language, and Breaking News. His prose works include Last Night's Fun, a book about Irish traditional music; The Star Factory, a memoir of Belfast; Fishing for Amber: A Long Story; and a novel, Shamrock Tea, which was long-listed for the 2001 Booker Prize. His translation of Dante's Inferno won the 2002 Oxford Weidenfeld Translation prize, and his translation of Brian Merriman's Cuirt an Mhean Oiche (The Midnight Court) appeared in 2005. A translation of the Old Irish epic Tain Bo Cuailnge was published by Penguin Classics in 2007. For All We Know (2008) was a Poetry Book Society Choice. His Collected Poems was published in 2008. His most recent volumes of poetry are On the Night Watch (2009) and Until Before After (2010). He is the author or two novels, The Pen Friend (2009) and Exchange Place (2012).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780856408151
ISBN 10	0856408158
Title	The Pen Friend
Author	Ciaran Carson
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Colourpoint Creative Ltd
Year published	2009-11-06
Number of pages	256
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.