Deirdre Madden

Dos hermanas, Sara y Catherine, guardan sendos secretos. Su peso se les va a hacer insoportable cuando el invierno anuncie la llegada de la primavera en la granja yerma y solitaria en la que viven.

Remembering Light and Stone is a moving study of a young woman coming to terms with herself in a changing world.Not only is Maddens book a joy to read: it is also a portrait of personal fulfilment, and a telling snapshot of our age.The TimesOne of the most original and disturbing writers since Jean Rhys.Independent on Sunday

Nothing is Black is a beautifully told story of three women who find themselves in a remote part of Donegal at a defining moment in their lives.Wealthy and successful, Nuala has everything except the peace of mind she so desperately needs. She has come to stay with her cousin Claire, who leads a solitary life as a painter. Anna, Claires neighbour, longs for a reconciliation with her estranged daughter.Through their stories, Deirdre Madden explores the themes of friendship, family and the nature of creativity, confirming her reputation as one of Irelands most talented writers.

When the timid millionaire pianist Barney Barrington moves to Woodford, extraordinary things start to happen. For local millionaire Jasper Jellit doesnt like all the attention Barney is getting and will do anything to upstage him, including hosting an extravagant chocolate party for Woodford residents.But when Barney and Jasper want to buy the same painting, Jasper finds less scrupulous ways of getting what he wants. As Barney is too kind to ever have a suspicious thought, it falls to his hyper-intelligent cat Dandelion to save the day - with the help of Jaspers two misunderstood dogs Cannibal and Bruiser.Winner of the Eilis Dillon Award for a First Childrens Book

After a brilliant youth, the painter Roderic Kennedys life has been overtaken by a series of crises - alcoholism, the failure of his marriage to an Italian woman, and estrangement from his three daughters following his return to Ireland. When he meets Julia Fitzpatrick, twenty years younger than he and also an artist, it seems as if this period of turbulence and misfortune from which he has been struggling to emerge is at an end. But when Julia then meets William Armstrong, a middle-aged lawyer, it sets in motion a chain of events which, in the course of the following year, has dramatic and unforeseen consequences for all three of them. Deirdre Maddens ambitious novel is both a moving love story and a thought-provoking meditation upon the nature of painting. It is above all an exploration of what it means to be an artist in contemporary society.

Dublin. Midsummer. While absent in New York, the celebrated actor Molly Fox has loaned her house to a playwright friend, who is struggling to write a new work. Over the course of this, the longest day of the year, the playwright reflects upon her own life, Mollys, and that of their mutual friend Andrew, whom she has known since university. Why does Molly never celebrate her own birthday, which falls upon this day? What does it mean to be a playwright or an actor? How have their relationships evolved over the course of many years? Molly Foxs Birthday calls into question the ideas that we hold about who we are; and shows how the past informs the present in ways we might never have imagined.

All Over Ireland, edited by Deirdre Madden (Molly Foxs Birthday, Time Present and Time Past), continues the tradition of featuring the work of both new and established writers, including Colm Tóibín, Mary Morrissy and Eoin McNamee. These diverse and accomplished stories, by turns dazzling, thoughtful and startling, bring new ideas and energy to the form and richly enhance the tradition of Irish fiction.

When James proposes, it seems like an opportunity for Jane to leave her lonely past behind and become part of a family. But the presence of a woman in the cottage near their remote farmhouse threatens Janes new-found happiness.This compelling novel by one of Irelands finest writers won a Somerset Maugham Award.Maddens achievement is to make partial revelations about obscure lives as gripping as a thriller. Her style is passionate, emotional, but never obvious and does not admit a single cliche or badly written sentence.Observer

For Theresa and her student friends, Belfast can seem an urban nightmare - a city where violence can erupt at any moment, where secrecy and bitterness are nursed behind closed doors, and where Theresas twin brother, Francis, has been murdered, Deirdre Madden carefully and movingly reveals the crisis of faith that confronts Theresa when her devout Catholicism provides no explanation for the tragedy. Hidden Symptoms was originally published in Fabers First Fictions anthology where it was highly praised and was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 1987.

Fintan Buckley is a pleasant, rather conventional and unimaginative man, who works as a legal adviser in an import/export firm in Dublin. He lives in Howth and is married to Colette. They have two sons who are at university, and a small daughter. As he goes about his life, working and spending time with his family, Fintan begins to experience states of altered consciousness and auditory hallucinations, which seem to take him out of a linear experience of time. He becomes interested in how we remember or imagine the past, an interest trigged by becoming aware of early photography, particularly early colour photography. He also finds himself thinking more about his own past, including time spent holidaying in the north of Ireland as a child with his fathers family. Over the years he has become distanced from them, and in the course of the novel this link is re-established and helps to bring him understanding and peace, although in a most unexpected way. Time Present and Time Past, Deirdre Maddens eighth novel for adults, is about time: about how not just daily life and ones own, or ones familys past, intersect with each other.

One by One in the Darkness is an account of a week in the lives of three sisters shortly before the start of the IRA ceasefire in 1994, undercut with the story of their childhood in Northern Ireland of the 1960s and 1970s. The history of both a family and a society, One by One in the Darkness confirms Deirdre Maddens reputation as one of Irish fictions most outstanding talents.Her authority when writing on her native Northern Ireland is supreme . . . beautifully written . . . an author with a rare talent . . . haunting and beautiful.Literary ReviewNo other book has left me with such a lasting impression of the hurt of Northern Ireland.Sunday TribuneAmbitious and wide-ranging . . . skilfully constructed . . . particularly good at the way in which the past constructs the present, how intense memories transfigure current experience . . . A quiet and effective psychological realism.Independent on Sunday

Theres a wonderful emerald necklace called The Green Marvel hidden somewhere in Haverford-Snuffley Hall. Sneaky Jasper Jellit takes a job there as a gardener, hoping to get his hands on the jewels. But the house is haunted, his two pet rats Rags and Bags give him no end of trouble, and then theres Mrs Knutmegg the cook, who sees immediately that Jaspers up to no good . . .A sparkling sequel to the award winning Snakes Elbows.

Cate regresa a Irlanda del Norte en 1994, poco antes del alto el fuego del IRA, para reunirse con su madre y hermanas en la casa familiar. El reencuentro despierta recuerdos de una infancia marcada por el amor, la naturaleza y una vida rural protegida de los primeros disturbios politicos. A traves de historias familiares, vamos conociendo al padre, Charlie Quinn, su mujer y sus hijas, hasta que el asesinato de este por paramilitares lealistas irrumpe con violencia, las sume repentinamente en la realidad del conflicto, y el pais se convierte para ellas en una tierra de fanatismo y odio. Una a una en la oscuridad te atrapa desde la primera pagina y entrelaza pasado y presente con una delicadeza conmovedora que nos hace testigos del trauma que marca para siempre a las hermanas.