Kirjahaku

This book is a complete re-assessment of the works of J.M. Synge, one of Ireland's major playwrights. The book offers the first complete consideration of all of Synge's major plays and prose works in nearly 30 years, drawing on extensive archival research to offer innovative new readings. Much work has been done in recent years to uncover Synge's modernity and to emphasise his political consciousness. This book builds on this re-assessment, undertaking a full systematic exploration of Synge's published and unpublished works. Tracing his journey from an early Romanticism through to the more combative modernism of his later work, the book's innovative methodology treats text as process, and considers Synge's reading materials, his drafts, letters, diaries, and journalism, turning up exciting and unexpected revelations. Thus, Synge's engagement with occultism, pantheism, socialism, Darwinism, and even a late reaction against eugenic nationalisms, are all brought into the critical discussion. Breaking new ground in ascertaining the tenets of Synge's spirituality, and his aesthetic and political idealization of harmony with nature, the book also builds on new work in modernist studies, arguing that Synge can be understood as a leftist modernist, exhibiting many of the key concerns of early modernism, but routing them through a socialist politics. Thus, this book is valuable not only to considerations of Synge and the Irish Revival, but also to modernist studies more broadly.

Winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature - Named a Best Book of 2022 by Kirkus, Booklist, and Shelf Awareness - Named a Best Book of July by Buzzfeed - A Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction 2022 Summer Read - Observer Book of the Week - Lammy Finalist "The most beautiful prose I've read in years."--Alexander Chee, The Atlantic - "Rapturous...Hewitt beautifully illuminates his own darknesses so that we might also see our own."--Melissa Febos, The New York Times Book Review - "Exquisitely written."--Claire Messud, Harper's MagazineWhen Seán Hewitt meets Elias, the two fall headlong into a love story. But as Elias struggles with severe mental illness, they soon come face-to-face with crisis. All Down Darkness Wide is a perceptive and unflinching meditation on the burden of living in a world that too often sets happiness and queer life at odds, and a tender and honest portrayal of what it's like to be caught in the undertow of a loved one's deep depression. As lives are made and unmade, this memoir asks what love can endure and what it cannot. Delving into his own history, enlisting the ghosts of queer figures before him, Hewitt plumbs the darkness in search of answers. From a nineteenth-century cemetery in Liverpool to a sacred grotto in the Pyrenees, it is a journey of lonely discovery followed by the light of community. Haunted by the rites of Catholicism and spectres of shame, it is nevertheless marked by an insistent search for beauty. Hewitt captures transcendent moments in nature with exquisite lyricism, honours the power of reciprocated desire and provides a master class in the incredible force of unsparing specificity. All Down Darkness Wide illuminates a path ahead for queer literature and for the literature of heartbreak, striking a piercing and resonant chord for all who trace Hewitt's dauntless footsteps.

A stunning debut novel from the acclaimed young Irish poet Se n Hewitt, reminiscent of Garth Greenwell and Justin Torres in the intensity of its evocation of sexual awakening Set in a remote village in the north of England, Open, Heaven unfolds over the course of one year in which two teenage boys meet and transform each other's lives. James--a sheltered, shy sixteen-year-old--is alone in his newly discovered sexuality, full of an unruly desire but entirely inexperienced. As he is beginning to understand himself and his longings, he also realizes how his feelings threaten to separate him from his family and the rural community he has grown up in. He dreams of another life, fantasizing about what lies beyond the village's leaf-ribboned boundaries, beyond his reach: autonomy, tenderness, sex. Then, in the autumn of 2002, he meets Luke, a slightly older boy, handsome, unkempt, who comes with a reputation for danger. Abandoned by his parents--his father imprisoned, and his mother having moved to France for another man--Luke has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle on their farm just outside the village. James is immediately drawn to him "like the pull a fire makes on the air, dragging things into it and blazing them into its hot, white centre," drawn to this boy who is beautiful and impulsive, charismatic, troubled. But underneath Luke's bravado is a deep wound--a longing for the love of his father and for the stability of family life. Open, Heaven is a novel about desire, yearning, and the terror of first love. With the striking economy and lyricism that animate his work as a poet, Hewitt has written a mesmerizing hymn to boyhood, sensuality, and love in all its forms. A truly exceptional debut.

A luminous memoir from the prize-winning poet - a story of love, heartbreak and coming of age, and a tender exploration of queer identity.'Beautiful' Colm Tóibín'Rapturous' New York Times'Extraordinary' Observer'Stunning' Sunday TimesWhen Seán meets Elias, the two fall headlong into a love story. But as Elias struggles with severe depression, the couple comes face to face with crisis.Wrestling with this, Seán Hewitt delves deep into his own history, enlisting the ghosts of queer figures and poets before him. From a nineteenth-century cemetery in Liverpool to the pine forests of Gothenburg, Hewitt plumbs the darkness in search of solace and hope.All Down Darkness Wide is a mesmerising story of heartache and renewal, and a fearless exploration of a world that too often sets happiness and queer life at odds.WINNER OF THE ROONEY PRIZE FOR IRISH LITERATURE 2022'Extraordinarily beautiful... the best new work of non-fiction I've read in years' Sarah Perry'Rigorous and sensual... Hewitt has forged a life-enhancing memoir' Spectator

** WINNER OF THE LAUREL PRIZE 2021 ****A SPECTATOR AND IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020****SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES / UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2020****SHORTLISTED FOR THE JOHN POLLARD FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE 2021****SHORTLISTED FOR THE DALKEY LITERARY EMERGING WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2021**A remarkable first collection by an important new poetIn this collection, Seán Hewitt gives us poems of a rare musicality and grace. By turns searing and meditative, these are lyrics concerned with the matter of the world, its physicality, but also attuned to the proximity of each moment, each thing, to the spiritual. Here, there is sex, grief, and loss, but also a committed dedication to life, hope and renewal. Drawing on the religious, the sacred and the profane, this is a collection in which men meet in the woods, where matter is corrupted and remade. There are prayers, hymns, vespers, incantations, and longer poems which attempt to propel themselves towards the transcendent. In this book, there is always the sense of fragility allied with strength, a violence harnessed and unleashed. The collection ends with a series of elegies for the poet's father: in the face of despair, we are met with a fierce brightness, and a reclamation of the spiritual. 'This is when / we make God, and speak in his voice.'Paying close attention to altered states and the consolations and strangeness of the natural world, this is the first book from a major poet.

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE *In this remarkable second collection, Seán Hewitt describes a journey haunted by love, loss and estrangement - from one of the Sunday Times 30 under 30 in Ireland'Points to a bright future for Irish poetry' SUNDAY TIMES'An exquisitely calm and insightful lyric poet' MAX PORTERAs the mind wanders and becomes spectral, these poems forge their own unique path through the landscape. The road Hewitt takes us on is a sleepwalk into the nightwoods, a dream-state where nature is by turns regenerated and broken, and where the split self of the speaker is interrupted by a series of ghosts, memories and encounters.Following the reciprocal relationship between queer sexuality and the natural world that he explored in Tongues of Fire, the poet conjures us here into a trance: a deep delirium of hypnotic, hectic rapture where everything is called into question, until a union is finally achieved – a union in nature, with nature.A threnody for what is lost, a dance of apocalypse and rebirth, Rapture’s Road draws us through what is hidden, secret, often forbidden, to a state of ecstasy. It leads into the humid night, through lethal love and grief, and glimpses, at the end of the journey, a place of tenderness and reawakening.

TWO BOYS MEET. EVERYTHING CHANGES.THE INSTANT IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER‘An exquisite tale of first love’ SARAH PERRY, GUARDIAN‘Heart-rending… Propulsive’ FINANCIAL TIMES‘God’s Own Country meets Heartstopper’ BRANDON TAYLOR‘I loved it... Beautiful’ FERDIA LENNONOn the cusp of adulthood, James dreams of another life far away from his small village. As he contends with the expectations of his family, his burgeoning desire – an ache for autonomy, tenderness and sex – threatens to unravel his shy exterior.Then he meets Luke. Unkempt and handsome, charismatic and impulsive, he has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle on a nearby farm. Luke comes with a reputation for danger, but underneath his bravado lie anxieties and hopes of his own.With the passing seasons, the two teenagers grow closer and the bond that emerges between them transforms their lives. James falls deeply for Luke, yet he is never sure of Luke’s true feelings. And as the end of summer nears, he has a choice to make – will he risk everything for the possibility of love?* A Guardian, Irish Times and BBC Book for 2025 *READERS LOVE OPEN, HEAVEN‘My favourite book of the year’‘Gorgeous. I was completely transported’‘The intoxicating rush of first love. Five stars!’‘Breathtakingly beautiful. A story that stays with you’‘Heart-breaking but also triumphant. A must-read’‘The most truthful novel about lovethat I have read in a long time’‘It made my heart hurt in the best ways’ HELEN MACDONALD‘Hewitt writes with such tenderness and grace’ ANNE ENRIGHT‘Open, Heaven does what the very best coming-of-age stories do’ MICHAEL MAGEE‘A gorgeous ache of a novel’ COLIN WALSH‘Seán Hewitt is the real deal’ BENJAMIN MYERSOpen, Heaven was an Irish top ten bestseller w/c 28 April 2025

Vinner av The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature 2022. «Hewitt lyssetter sitt mørke så vakkert at vi også kanskje kan se vårt eget.» - Melissa Febos, New York Times Book Review «Noe av den vakreste prosa jeg har lest på årevis.» - Alexander Chee, The Atlantic Da Seán møter Elias faller de fort inn i et kjærlighetsforhold, men idyllen blir kortvarig da Elias' alvorlige depresjon dytter de forelskede mot en krise. I denne utfordrende tiden reflekterer Seán over snubletrådene i sitt eget liv - om å vokse opp som skeiv når man er oppdratt i katolsk tro, og om den kronglete veien frem til å endelig kunne lande i seg selv. Fra en 1800-talls kirkegård i Liverpool, til furuskogene i Gøteborg, kaster han seg inn i det ukjente mørket på leting etter håp og lys. Gjennom det store mørke er et ømt portrett av hvordan det er å være fanget i understrømmen av en annens lidelse og om kjærlighetens smerteterskel. Det er en vakker fortelling om hjertesorg og om å finne trøst i litteraturen - og om å snu seg tilbake for å kunne finne veien fremover. Oversatt av Agnete Øye

16-årige James drømmer om et andet liv. Et liv langt væk fra forældrenes bekymrede blikke og den kvælende tilværelse i en lille nordengelsk flække – og langt fra den mælkerute, som han er blevet pålagt af sin far. Da møder han Luke. Luke, som bor hos sin onkel på mælkerutens sidste stop. Han er usoigneret, men flot, karismatisk, men impulsiv, og han har et ry for at være farlig. Men James er drevet af et spirende begær efter selvstændighed, ømhed og sex, og efterhånden som årstiderne kommer og forsvinder, nærmer de to teenagere sig hinanden, og det bånd, der opstår imellem dem, forandrer deres liv. Da sommeren lakker mod enden, må James træffe et valg: Vil han risikere at miste sin eneste ven for kærligheden? Mod himlen er en sanselig coming-of-age-roman om venskab og kærlighed mellem to drenge, som finder hinanden i hver sin ensomhed. Det er endeløse somre, mørke vintre og et skelsættende år.