Topographia Hibernica
On sale
9th November 2023
Price: £24.99
The new short-story collection from Irish bestselling author, musician and comedian Blindboy Boatclub.
You don’t fully appreciate how large a donkey’s head is until it’s beside you in a Fiat Punto. The view in my mirror was furry and violent. I was driving blind.
Driving with a donkey stuffed in the back seat; jackdaws pecking brains out through the roof of a confessional box; cat piss and astronauts. This is the world not as you see it, but as it is, twisted from the maverick mind of Blindboy Boatclub.
These are stories of the strange unsettlings in the souls of men caught in between the past and the possible; stories of heart-blinding rage and disquieting compassion.
Taking its title from a twelfth-century English manuscript of the same name, which dehumanised the people and culture of Ireland to facilitate domination, Topographia Hibernica is a collection that unravels the knotted threads of humanity, nature and colonisation from a contemporary Irish perspective.
Called ‘one of the most gifted writers of his generation’ by the Irish Times, Blindboy Boatclub is the essential voice for the Irish condition in the twenty-first century. Topographia Hibernica is his unmissable new short-story collection.
(P)2023 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
You don’t fully appreciate how large a donkey’s head is until it’s beside you in a Fiat Punto. The view in my mirror was furry and violent. I was driving blind.
Driving with a donkey stuffed in the back seat; jackdaws pecking brains out through the roof of a confessional box; cat piss and astronauts. This is the world not as you see it, but as it is, twisted from the maverick mind of Blindboy Boatclub.
These are stories of the strange unsettlings in the souls of men caught in between the past and the possible; stories of heart-blinding rage and disquieting compassion.
Taking its title from a twelfth-century English manuscript of the same name, which dehumanised the people and culture of Ireland to facilitate domination, Topographia Hibernica is a collection that unravels the knotted threads of humanity, nature and colonisation from a contemporary Irish perspective.
Called ‘one of the most gifted writers of his generation’ by the Irish Times, Blindboy Boatclub is the essential voice for the Irish condition in the twenty-first century. Topographia Hibernica is his unmissable new short-story collection.
(P)2023 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
One of the most gifted writers of his generation
A bestseller in the bag
A cultural phenomenon...
Earnest and intellectual, but also funny and down-to-earth....
Talking to him can feel like skittering around a galaxy of Wikipedia wormholes (in a good way)
Powered by immense, perverse energy out of the Limerick idiom, the collection generates a singular music that is memorable, unsettling and humane. Moments of beauty dazzle amid the profanity, as pathos and comedy are braided together
Eerie, dark and twisted . . . Blindboy's passion for Irish nature, mythology and folklore lends a spiritual profundity
One of the best books I have ever read