A Slanting of the Sun: Stories

“Donal Ryan’s ambition is to evoke the marginal or washed-up existences of people in a global but very non-metropolitan Ireland as the 21st century dawns… He channels their voices with consummate ventriloquism … Ryan’s ear for an authentically crackling colloquialism is as sharp as ever… Ryan’s skill with language flicks out slang and abuse with a masterly touch … his ear is sharply attuned and his sense of irony remains mordant.” – Roy Foster The Irish Times “Donal Ryan, one of our most remarkable writers, has produced a book of short stories of such visceral power that they hit you in the solar plexus. He deals with the dark side of modern Irish life and produces sentences of titanic impact.” – Joe Duffy Irish Mail on Sunday “Outstanding stories … There’s a bracing - indeed, sometimes saving - humour … and there’s a tenderness, too, towards many of the collection’s lost souls… Ryan is already such a master of the short form that even when you dread the outcome, you can’t stop reading.” – John Boland Irish Independent “Donal Ryan is a heartbreaker, his quicksilver prose laced with … wistful rhythms … These breathtaking stories explore human love against an uneasy landscape of violence and desperation… Donal finds hope in dark corners. ‘Sky’ [is] a story about everything - life, loss and loneliness - but also just about one man’s love for his nephew. [The title story’s] gentle and redemptive ending leaves you gaping with wonder.” Daily Mail “Donal Ryan is a master of the magnetic first line… His faithful subject is rural despair; the poetry of adversity, the baffling fortitude of intrinsically decent people… These are plain-speaking stories, and in spite of the pervasive woe, this plain speech lends itself to blunt, bleak, brilliant humour… Each unit of language has been scrupulously positioned, though the overall effect is of effortlessness… This collection shows Ryan adding his own elastic yet distinctive voice to O’Connor’s impeccable tradition.” – Sara Baume The Guardian

Donal Ryan, from Nenagh, County Tipperary, has published seven number one bestselling novels and a short story collection. He has won several awards for his fiction, including the European Union Prize for Literature, the Guardian First Book Award and six Irish Book Awards, and has been shortlisted for several more, including the Costa Book Award and the Dublin International Literary Award. He was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2013 for his debut novel, The Spinning Heart, and again in 2018, for his fourth novel, From A Low and Quiet Sea. The Spinning Heart was voted Irish Book of the Decade in 2016. In 2021 Donal became the first Irish writer to be awarded the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His most recent novel, Heart Be at Peace, won both Novel of the Year and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Nero Book Awards. His work has been adapted for stage and screen and translated into over twenty languages. Donal has lectured in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick since 2014 and lives in Castletroy with his wife Anne Marie and their two children.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.