The Queen of Dirt Island

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the multi-award-winning author of the number one bestseller, STRANGE FLOWERS, a searing, jubilant story about four generations of women and fierce love.

The Aylward women of Nenagh, Tipperary, are mad about each other, but you wouldn't always think it. You'd have to know them to know - in spite of what the neighbours might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes - that their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world.

Their story begins at an end and ends at a beginning. It involves wives and widows, gunrunners and gougers, sinners and saints. It's a story of terrible betrayals and fierce loyalties, of isolation and togetherness, of transgression, forgiveness, desire, and love. About all the things family can be and all the things it sometimes isn't. From the prize-winning author of Strange Flowers and The Spinning Heart, The Queen of Dirt Island is an uplifting celebration of fierce, loyal love and the powerful stories that bind generations together.

'Donal Ryan is giving us characters that we haven't seen in Irish literature before' RODDY DOYLE

'Ryan's work has set a benchmark to which other writers will aspire' JOHN BOYNE

'I think you have to truly love people to write like this' RACHEL JOYCE

© Donal Ryan 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Critics Review

  • This is a generous mosaic of a novel about the staying power of love and pride and history and family. While Donal Ryan is never afraid of “all the meanness and sorrow of the world,” he also manages to excavate the thrilling beauties that hold us together. He manages, with wit and grace, to illuminate the anonymous corners of human experience and get at the underworld of our souls.

    COLUM McCANN

  • Donal Ryan is one of the finest novelists writing today and this is a gem of a novel. Full of humanity, humility, humour, drama and mystery, his characters are so vivid you feel they are sitting outside, waiting for him to conjure them to life. He writes with grace and precision, with love indeed, about who we are and why, about family history and the ghosts we carry. A haunting, exquisite masterpiece.

    RACHEL JOYCE

  • From its opening pages, this book exerts a quiet, propulsive hold over its reader. The three generations of Aylward women will break your heart and then put it back together again. It’s a beautiful, compassionate novel – Donal Ryan at his inimitable best.

    MAGGIE O'FARRELL

  • Beautifully poised, sad, poetic and human….I loved every single line.

    IAN RANKIN

  • I truly enjoyed The Queen Of Dirt Island from its jolting first chapter to its calm, graceful conclusion. Now I’m on to Strange Flowers.

    PAUL SIMON

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