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In 1979, as violence erupts all over Ireland, two outsiders travel to a small island off the west coast in search of their own answers, despite what it may cost the islanders.
It is the summer of 1979. An English painter travels to a small island off the west coast of Ireland. Mr. Lloyd takes the last leg by currach, though boats with engines are available and he doesn’t much like the sea. He wants the authentic experience, to be changed by this place, to let its quiet and light fill him, give him room to create. He doesn’t know that a Frenchman follows close behind. Jean-Pierre Masson has visited the island for many years, studying the language of those who make it their home. He is fiercely protective of their isolation, deems it essential to exploring his theories of language preservation and identity.
But the people who live on this rock—three miles long and half a mile wide—have their own views on what is being recorded, what is being taken, and what ought to be given in return. Over the summer, each of them—from great-grandmother Bean Uí Fhloinn, to widowed Mairéad, to fifteen-year-old James, who is determined to avoid the life of a fisherman—will wrestle with their values and desires. Meanwhile, all over Ireland, violence is erupting. And there is blame enough to go around.
An expertly woven portrait of character and place, a stirring investigation into yearning to find one’s way, and an unflinchingly political critique of the long, seething cost of imperialism, Audrey Magee’s The Colony is a novel that transports, that celebrates beauty and connection, and that reckons with the inevitable ruptures of independence.
Longlisted for the Booker Prize
A Finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
“The Colony is a novel of ideas . . . Magee builds her world with a rich particularity . . . [anchored] in the brutal political realities of Ireland during a fateful summer, while acting as a reminder of imperialism’s broader legacy around the world.”
— Kathryn Hughes, The New York Times Book Review
“Fertile ground for exploring big ideas, widespread tensions and fatal consequences . . . A vivid, thought-provoking novel about language, art, colonialism and the Troubles.”
— Malcolm Forbes, Star Tribune
“Like a fable, The Colony is sealed up tight, all possible meanings accounted for. And, like history itself, it has a bitter lesson to teach . . . It makes an ultimately satisfying shape in the mind, and creates a mood that lingers discomfitingly after the final page is turned.”
— Kevin Power, The Guardian
“Luminous, lyrical and pungent.”
— Jonathan Myerson, The Observer
About the Author
Audrey Magee is the author of The Undertaking, a novel short-listed for several prizes and honors, including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Irish Book Award, and France’s Festival du premier roman. She lives in Wicklow, Ireland.
All events are listed in Eastern Time and Irish Standard Time.
