More shameless self promotion

I do not write a lot creatively in English, be it prose or poetry. Having learnt – and continuing to spend so much time learning – Irish, it seems a waste of time to switch to English. Not that I have anything against English. Some of my best friends are English speakers. Still, what difference, one way or another, will another book in English make to the planet? That said, I now happily admit to having written a new – and very short book – in English: Milltown: a Belfast Novella (Lagan Press, £6.99).

The blurb states: “Set in west Belfast, Pól Ó Muirí’s intimate lyric reverie explores the pain of cultural dispossession, the disintegration of a communal shared past and the strains of familial loyalty. Bracing in its challenge to the orthodoxies of what it means to belong in this most divided cities, the angry polemic of Milltown also proclaims the imaginative liberation of telling a story.”

So there you are. As I say, it is a very short book, less than 10,000 words, which is really about my limit in terms of writing fiction in English. The novella is in Waterstone’s, Bookshop at Queen’s and No Alibis in Belfast or can be ordered on Amazon or directly through www.lagan-press.org.uk (If I or my publisher every get around to having a launch, you will be the first to know.)

Bíodh sin mar atá, níl faillí déanta agam sa Ghaeilge. Scríobh mé leabhar ar shaol an scríbhneora, Seosamh Mac Grianna, roinnt míonna ó shin: Seosamh Mac Grianna: Míreanna Saoil (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, €12). Is leabhar gairid eile é seo ach ceann fiúntach ar shaol an Chonallaigh mhóir. Tá an leabhar seo sna siopaí fosta nó tig leat dul ar líne ag www.cic.ie

Sin é.