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The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan
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The Spinning Heart

Due to publisher restrictions, this audiobook is unavailable for purchase in your selected country.
Length 4 hours 43 minutes
Language English
Narrators Ciaran O'Brien, Toni O'Rourke, Killian Coyle, Eva Bartley, Gerry Howard, Donal Ryan, Anne Marie Ryan & Roy McMillan

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Brought to you by Penguin.

Winner of the Guardian First Book Award 2013


Shortlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award 2014

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013


Winner of Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2012

In the aftermath of Ireland's financial collapse, dangerous tensions surface in an Irish town. As violence flares, the characters face a battle between public persona and inner desires. Through a chorus of unique voices, each struggling to tell their own kind of truth, a single authentic tale unfolds.

The Spinning Heart speaks for contemporary Ireland like no other novel. Wry, vulnerable, all-too human, it captures the language and spirit of rural Ireland and with uncanny perception articulates the words and thoughts of a generation. Technically daring and evocative of Patrick McCabe and J.M. Synge, this novel of small-town life is witty, dark and sweetly poignant.

'Funny, moving and beautifully written' EDNA O'BRIEN

'Filled with light and shade, love and tragedy ... if it was a song you could sing it' ANNE ENRIGHT

'Donal Ryan is the real deal ... a brilliantly realised, utterly resonant state-of-the-nation landscape' SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

'I can't imagine a more original, more perceptive or more passionate work than this. Outstanding' JOHN BOYNE

'It's furious, it's moving, it's darkly funny, it punches you right in the gut' NEW YORK TIMES

ยฉ Donal Ryan 2012 (P) Penguin Audio 2024

Donal Ryan is an award-winning author from Nenagh, County Tipperary, whose work has been published in over twenty languages to major critical acclaim. The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland), and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was voted 'Irish Book of the Decade'. His fourth novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2018, and won the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His novel, Strange Flowers, was voted Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was a number one bestseller, as was his most recent novel The Queen of Dirt Island, which was also shortlisted for Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Donal lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. He lives with his wife Anne Marie and their two children just outside Limerick City.

Donal Ryan is an award-winning author from Nenagh, County Tipperary, whose work has been published in over twenty languages to major critical acclaim. The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland), and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was voted 'Irish Book of the Decade'. His fourth novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2018, and won the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His novel, Strange Flowers, was voted Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was a number one bestseller, as was his most recent novel The Queen of Dirt Island, which was also shortlisted for Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Donal lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. He lives with his wife Anne Marie and their two children just outside Limerick City.

Audiobook details

Author:

ISBN:
9781529945164

Length:
4 hours 43 minutes

Language:
English

Publisher:
Transworld

Publication date:

Edition:
Unabridged

Libro.fm rank:
#33,305 Overall

Genre rank:
#3,273 in Fiction - Literary

Illustration of person opening a gift

The perfect last-minute gift

Audiobook credit bundles can be delivered instantly, given worldwide, and support local bookstores!

Start gifting
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Nowโ€™s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, weโ€™ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

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Reviews

Thereโ€™s a powerful sense of place and shared history binding Ryanโ€™s many voices, their inner and outer selves, distilling a linguistic richness comparable to Under Milk Wood. . . . Ryanโ€™s novel . . . seems to draw speech out of the deepest silences; the testimony of his characters rings rich and true โ€“ funny and poignant and banal and extraordinary โ€“ and we canโ€™t help but listen. Filled with light and shade, love and tragedy ... if it was a song you could sing it Itโ€™s furious, itโ€™s moving, itโ€™s darkly funny, it punches you right in the gut, the writing is effortlessly wonderful, and every one of the wide variety of voices rings utterly true. Donal Ryan is the real deal โ€ฆ A brilliantly realised, utterly resonant state-of-the-nation landscape Donal Ryanโ€™s precise and evocative debut โ€ฆ is a textured account of a community as it was during a brief moment of time. โ€ฆ unexpectedly tender โ€ฆ Ryanโ€™s prism of life and lives is compellingly humane. โ€ฆ This is an exciting, relevant and believable contemporary novel about the lost and the wounded that listens to the present without discarding either the sins of the fathers or the literary legacy of the past. Expand reviews
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