Anne Enright: The Wren, the Wren

Anne Enright has been awarded the Man Booker Prize, the first Laureate for Irish Fiction (2015-2018), the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Book Awards. Her books have been widely praised and admired, and her upcoming novel THE WREN, THE WREN is no exception. On Twitter, Margaret Atwood called it "gritty, sad, sly, riotous...[the] gem-packed language fizzes like a sidewalk firecracker." Sally Rooney says, "Enright's stylistic brilliance seems to put the reader directly in touch with her characters and the rich territory of their lives." And Jennifer Egan raves, "To call Anne Enright's new novel a moving, nuanced glimpse at three generations of Irish life underplays its thrilling expansiveness: in the end, THE WREN, THE WREN is an electrifying romp through language itself—its dizzying possibilities and satisfactions—led by one of the most gifted writers working in English today."

"The novel deals with the inheritance of trauma, wonder, and love across three generations of women. We are first introduced to Nell McDaragh, who never knew her grandfather, the famed Irish poet Phil McDaragh. But his love poems seem to speak directly to her. Restless, full of verve and wit, twenty-two-year-old Nell leaves her mother Carmel's home to find her voice as a writer and live a life of her choosing. Carmel, too, knows the magic of her Daddo's poetry—and the broken promises within its verses. When Phil abandons the family, Carmel struggles to reconcile "the poet" with the man whose desertion scars Carmel, her sister, and their cancer-ridden mother. In sharp prose studded with crystalline poetry, Anne Enright masterfully braids a family story of longing, betrayal, and hope."