Kirjahaku

Marching Season is the fifth short story collection by Belfast author writer and playwright, Rosemary Jenkinson, who is renowned for being one of the sharpest and boldest chroniclers of contemporary life. This latest collection boasts a dazzling cast of misfits, artists, musicians, teachers, and would-be millionaires; some striving brightly for success and defying the drift of the modern world, others seeking out new and lost loves. These lyrical, witty, and glittering stories are all bound together by the luminescence of Jenkinson's peerless prose.

Written by acclaimed playwright and fiction writer Rosemary Jenkinson, Billy Boy is a fiery new play about Belfast bonfire builders. Aaron is looking after the biggest and most controversial "boney" in the East side of Belfast and is determined to fight the council’s ruling. The problem is, if he gets into any more trouble, he might have to pack his bags.

Silent Trade is a highly relevant contemporary play set in Belfast about Precious, a young Nigerian woman, who is trafficked into domestic servitude in a suburban house, before being sexually trafficked to a brothel. Eventually, she escapes to freedom and encounters the justice system. This play was inspired by engagement with organizations who deal with human trafficking, and with members of the Nigerian community who have knowledge and experience of exploitation.

Shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2023, this compelling collection illustrates how the short story is an apt genre to represent complex issues and perceptions a quarter-century after the Good Friday Agreement. While Greater Belfast is represented by protagonists ranging from Catholic members of the police to customs officials hampered in their jobs by mobs, non-Irish make an appearance too as they face war in Ukraine. As transgenerational trauma, drugs, and Brexit hit protagonists of different walks of life, Jenkinson’s style mixes empathy with striking similes and dry humor.

Sandy Row Riots is a collection of poems that are by turns wry, moving and epiphanic. Rosemary Jenkinson lives up to her reputation as one of the sharpest and most relevant writers working today by alighting on contemporary love and relationships, family ties and the teeming city streets. Her themes deal with life in Northern Ireland, both past and present, paramilitary and suburban.

Following on from her Edge Hill Award shortlisting for Love in the Time of Chaos, Jenkinson returns with Laganside Lights, a bold new collection of short stories brimming with peacemakers and warmongers, lovemakers and lawyers, artists and influencers – all human life is here colliding with kinetic verve. Jenkinson employs her legendary wit to peel back the layers of contemporary Belfast, illuminating the feverish desires, loneliness and pyrrhic triumphs of everyday existence.