Bernard MacLaverty Reihenfolge der Bücher (Chronologisch)

The extraordinary new story collection from one of Ireland's greatest writers and bestselling author of Mindwinter Break. Bernard MacLaverty is a consummately gifted short-story writer and novelist whose work - like that of John McGahern, William Trevor, Edna O'Brien or Colm Tóibín - is deceptively simple on the surface, but carries a turbulent undertow. Everywhere, the dark currents of violence, persecution and regret pull at his subject matter: family love, the making of art, Catholicism, the Troubles and, latterly, ageing. Blank Pages is a collection of twelve extraordinary new stories that show the emotional range of a master. 'Blackthorns', for instance, tells of a poor out-of-work Catholic man who falls gravely ill in the sectarian Northern Ireland of 1942 but is brought back from the brink by an unlikely saviour. The most recently written story here is the harrowing but transcendent 'The End of Days', which imagines the last moments in the life of painter Egon Schiele, watching his wife dying of Spanish flu - the world's worst pandemic, until now. Much of what MacLaverty writes is an amalgam of sadness and joy, of circumlocution and directness. He never wastes words but neither does he ever forget to make them sing. Each story he writes creates a universe.

»Ein Roman von außergewöhnlicher emotionaler Präzision und Einfühlungskraft.« Colm Tóibín Mit einem verlängerten Wochenende in Amsterdam möchten Stella und Gerry ihren Ruhestandsalltag unterbrechen. Sie lieben sich noch und ertragen gegenseitig ihre kleinen Fehler – aber in den vier Tagen treten tiefe Risse in ihrer Beziehung zutage. Und es wird klar, dass Stella einen ganz eigenen Plan verfolgt. Dieser Plan hängt mit dem Beginenhof zusammen und mit einem Gelübde, das Stella einst getan hat. Gerry dagegen hat weitgehend abgeschlossen mit seinem Leben, in dem der Alkohol eine zu große Rolle spielt. Während ihrer Reise drängt allmählich ein Ereignis aus ihrer gemeinsamen Vergangenheit im nordirischen Belfast immer stärker an die Oberfläche, etwas, das ihr ganzes Leben geprägt hat.

„Als ich klein war, spielte ich gern Bauernhof, stellte die Tierfiguren auf, Enten an den runden Spiegelteich, den Bauern und die Bäuerin, manchmal einander zugewandt, ein andermal Rücken an Rücken. Eine Welt erfinden, Menschen darin bewegen und laut kommentieren, was die einzelnen Menschen oder Tiere darin tun - Schreiben ist wahrscheinlich die Erwachsenenversion dieses Spiels: Eine Möglichkeit einer komplizierten Welt Sinn zu verleihen.“ Bernard MacLaverty

Nessuno in famiglia si è mai preso cura del piccolo Owen Kane: né i genitori, né la nonna, né i fratelli maggiori. E la sua vita non diventa certo più facile quando viene rinchiuso in un riformatorio sulla costa irlandese. Qui, per volontà del cinico padre superiore, il cui motto è "educa e sopprimi", Owen vive con i compagni sotto un regime rigidissimo, senza alcuna speranza di recupero o di redenzione. Soltanto padre Sebastian, al secolo Michael Lamb, matura una simpatia nei suoi confronti, e cerca di restituirgli l'affetto che gli è sempre stato negato. Nel pieno di una crisi religiosa, e convinto di agire per il bene di Owen, Michael si lascia tentare dalla fuga: raccoglie il denaro lasciatogli in eredità dal padre, morto da poco, e con il ragazzino si rifugia in Inghilterra, nella speranza di offrirgli un futuro dignitoso. Fra momenti di scoramento e brevi istanti di felicità, i due giungono a Londra, dove passano da un albergo all'altro sotto falso nome, cercano di concedersi qualche svago e cadono talvolta vittime di abili truffatori. Finché il destino che li ha voluti vicini avrà il suo tragico compimento. Con una scrittura tesa, asciutta, Bernard Mac Laverty costruisce un romanzo intenso, in cui il concetto di innocenza viene messo in discussione da un estremo e definitivo atto d'amore. Un romanzo in cui la forza e la sincerità dei sentimenti catturano il lettore fino alla fine.

The award-winning Grace Notes is a compact and altogether masterful portrait of a woman composer and the complex interplay between her life and her art. With superb artistry and startling intimacy, it brings us into the life of Catherine McKenna — estranged daughter, vexed lover, new mother, and musician making her mark in a male-dominated field. It is a book that the Virginia Woolf of A Room of One's Own would instantly understand.

Married love, male friendship, a small boy intruding upon secret adult grief, a husband contemplating infidelity - in these wonderful stories Bernard MacLaverty catches his characters at moments of epiphany, when ordinary life is set alight with sudden knowledge, memory, regret or desire.

The luminous novel by one of the finest living Irish writers, which Brian Moore has praised as "in every sense a triumph

A collection of stories that examines worlds in collision, relationships fragmenting, and innocence face to face with real life, real death.