Synopsis
A story of survival set in 600 AD Ireland; a parable of patriarchy, destruction and religion at sea, by Emma Donoghue, the bestselling author of Room.
'Everything a novel should be: compassionate, unpredictable, and questioning. Haven is Donoghue at her strange, unsettling best.' - Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet
Shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award
In seventh-century Ireland, a priest has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks with him, he travels down the Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a new place of worship. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. But in such a place, far from all other humanity, what will survival mean?
‘Haven is a beautiful, bold blaze of a book’ – Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
‘Beautiful and timely’ - Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater
‘Sinister, heart-wrenching and beautifully written’ – The Times
‘Combines pressure-cooker intensity and radical isolation, to stunning effect’ – Margaret Atwood via Twitter
‘Book of the Year’ pick in The Irish Times, The Guardian, The Irish Post, RTÉ and The Times.
Details
Reviews
“This book kept me up half the night - I was unable to put it down, and read it in one spellbound gulp. It is everything a novel should be: compassionate, unpredictable, and questioning. Haven is Donoghue at her strange, unsettling best.”Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet
“A beautiful and timely novel about isolation, passion and the conflict between obedience and self-preservation. The island setting and the characters stayed with me long after I finished reading”Sarah Moss, author of Ghostwall and Summerwater
“In 7th C, Ireland, three men set sail to a bird-thick island to find God. EmmaDonoghue combines pressure-cooker intensity + radical isolation, to stunning effect. What is Divine Grace? Purity of soul? Virtue? Not what they think. ”Margaret Atwood via Twitter
“Both a story about three men of God surviving with almost nothing on an island, and another about dictatorship, isolation, true fraternity, love, the nature of faith and man’s place in the natural world . . . It’s utterly brilliant.”Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
