“Eimear McBride’s groundbreaking first novel uses a style that matches the conscious mind’s darting processes. It tells the story of a young woman in an Irish town in a time when the open religiosity is in conflict with changing sexual mores. In the novel, words and sentences themselves are under pressure as the events of the novel become more tense and dramatic and painful.” — Colm Tóibín 

 “The unforgettable protagonist of Louise Kennedy’s ‘Trespasses’ is 24-year-old Cushla Lavery, a Catholic schoolteacher living in 1975 in a small town outside Belfast. The novel narrates the story of her love affair with an older, married, Protestant barrister with the same wit and eye for detail as are on display in her book of stories ‘The End of the World is a Cul de Sac.” — Colm Tóibín 

 “Philip Ó Ceallaigh is a brilliant, uncompromising and ambitious writer who has long been resident in Bucharest. Of his collection of stories ‘Trouble’, the Los Angeles Review of Books wrote: ‘Ó Ceallaigh writes with such immediacy, such confessional intensity, that when the narrator leans in close and says, “Look — there lies trouble,” it is impossible to look away.” — Colm Tóibín 

 “In this brilliant and dreamy novel, John Banville gives life to the many characters who have peopled his fiction over fifty years. He allows them to meet each other, revisit old scenes not as ghosts or as revenants but as fictional protagonists with their own precise memories, their own pressing desires. There are some resonant evocations of place but all is bathed in a sense of pure aftermath.” — Colm Tóibín 

 “Haven, Emma Donoghue’s fourteenth novel, is set on Skellig Michael in the year 600 when three Irishmen decide to establish a monastery on this extraordinary piece of bare rock. The Chicago Review of Books has written: ‘In classic Donoghue narrative style, it all unfolds in a confined space under cramped conditions ... convincingly conveyed by Donoghue’s raw descriptions and her exceptional skill with emotionally authentic dialogue.” — Colm Tóibín 

 “Iron Annie is written with astonishing energy and verve. It is set in the criminal underworld of Dundalk, but more important, it is written in a tone that is intriguing and unforgettable. It uses a living and contemporary language distilled by Cassidy into a radically original style, a style that establishes him, with this debut book, as one of the most exciting writers in Ireland now.” — Colm Tóibín 

 “Nothing Special is set at a very particular New York moment. It is 1966. Mae, the protagonist, lands a job as typist for the artist Andy Warhol who is embarking on an unconventional novel by taping the conversations of his associates and friend. Mae moves on the edges of Warhol’s world, attending the counterculture parties. The novel dramatizes her coming of-age in Warhol’s New York.” — Colm Tóibín 

 “Ben, the protagonist of White City, is, John Self writes in the Guardian, the ‘son of a disgraced Dublin banker, languishing in rehab and writing an account of his wrong turns as therapy.’ As Ben gets involved in a dodgy property deal in Serbia, Power creates a world of Irish people on the make with the hapless Ben at its centre. Ben, the Irish Times writes, ‘is Power’s unforgettable creation.” — Colm Tóibín 

 “The Guardian writes of Wendy Erskine’s collection of stories: ‘She identifies what is most fruitful about her characters’ predicaments – the emotional core, the most resonant ironies – and traces with rapt and infectious attention their doomed if valiant attempts to shimmy away from the real.’ The stories, the Dublin Review of Books writes, ‘are gloriously offbeat tales of people who live on the flip side and are out of step with those around them.” — Colm Tóibín 

 “My Father’s House is set in Nazi occupied Rome in the middle of the Second World War. Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty who, using the Vatican as his headquarters, sets about smuggling thousands of Jews and Allied prisoners out of Italy to safety. The Financial Times writes that ‘the diverse ventriloquism of O’Connor’s novel evokes a city in peril with wonderful vitality.” — Colm Tóibín 

 “Aingeala Flannery’s first collection of linked stories is set in the seaside town of Tramore. ‘The people in this book are not real but the town of Tramore is,’ Flannery has written. ‘It took up residence in my imagination when I was a child and has refused to leave.’ RTE has written that ‘The Amusements’ ‘weaves a gorgeous, empathetic story of a teenager yearning for freedom.” — Colm Tóibín

 “In the Irish Times preview of the best novels forthcoming in 2023, Martin Doyle writes: ‘The prospect of a new novel [by Mike McCormack] is one to savour. Part roman noir, part metaphysical thriller, This Plague of Souls deals with how we might mend the world – and is the story of a man who would let the world go to hell if he could keep his family together.” — Colm Tóibín