Fire Starters

**Shortlisted for the EU Prize for Literature**'One of the most exciting and original Northern Irish writers of her generation' SUNDAY TIMES'Gripping, affecting, surprising. I inhaled it' LISA MCINERNEY 'Captivating, intelligent and courageous' IRISH TIMES'Spectacular. At once grittily real, wildly magical and insanely alluring - a siren-song of a novel. DONAL RYAN'Jan Carson seems to have invented a new Belfast in this gripping, surprising, exhilarating novel. RODDY DOYLE'A brilliant, wry novel, fizzing with energy.' BARNEY NORRIS Dr Jonathan Murray fears his new-born daughter is not as harmless as she seems. Sammy Agnew is wrestling with his dark past, and fears the violence in his blood lurks in his son, too.The city is in flames and the authorities are losing control. As matters fall into frenzy, and as the lines between fantasy and truth, right and wrong, begin to blur, who will these two fathers choose to protectDark, propulsive and thrillingly original, this tale of fierce familial love and sacrifice fizzes with magic and wonder.

Parenting & Relationships

Carson, Jan

Family Relationships

DOUBLEDAY

Untitled 2

Literature & Fiction

Humor & Satire

Quickly, While They Still Have Horses: Stories

Short Stories & Anthologies

Scribner

'Profoundly imagined characters, spiced with the off-kilter and deliciously mad . . . a work of great empathy and imagination' THE IRISH TIMES\nThe season's just begun at Seacliff Caravan Park, but none of the residents are having a good time.\nFrankie is haunted by his daughter's death. Vidas, homeless and far from Lithuania, seeks sanctuary in an abandoned caravan. Anna struggles to shake off the ghost of her overbearing mother. Kathleen struggles to accept her daughter for who she is. Malcolm, a failed illusionist, makes one final attempt to reinvent himself. Agatha Christie-obsessed Alma faces her toughest case yet as she tries to help them all find what they've lost.\nWith trademark wit and playfulness, in this stunning linked short-story collection Jan Carson explores complex family dynamics, ageing, immigration, gender politics, the decline of the Church and the legacy of the Troubles. The Last Resort firmly places Carson as one of the most inventive and daring writers of her generation.\n'One of the most exciting and original Northern Irish writers of her generation' SUNDAY TIMES

The Last Resort

Contemporary

Doubleday Ireland

**WINNER of the EU Prize for Literature**'One of the most exciting and original Northern Irish writers of her generation' SUNDAY TIMES'Gripping, affecting, surprising. I inhaled it' LISA MCINERNEY 'Captivating, intelligent and courageous' IRISH TIMES'Spectacular. At once grittily real, wildly magical and insanely alluring - a siren-song of a novel. DONAL RYAN'Jan Carson seems to have invented a new Belfast in this gripping, surprising, exhilarating novel. RODDY DOYLE'A brilliant, wry novel, fizzing with energy.' BARNEY NORRIS Dr Jonathan Murray fears his new-born daughter is not as harmless as she seems. Sammy Agnew is wrestling with his dark past, and fears the violence in his blood lurks in his son, too.The city is in flames and the authorities are losing control. As matters fall into frenzy, and as the lines between fantasy and truth, right and wrong, begin to blur, who will these two fathers choose to protectDark, propulsive and thrillingly original, this tale of fierce familial love and sacrifice fizzes with magic and wonder.

Black Swan.

When several children from the same village start succumbing to a mysterious illness, the quest to discover the cause has devastating and extraordinary consequences.\nIt is late June in Ballylack. Hannah Adger anticipates eight long weeks' reprieve from school, but when her classmate Ross succumbs to a violent and mysterious illness, it marks the beginning of a summer like no other.\nAs others fall ill, questions about what - or who - is responsible pitch the village into conflict and fearful disarray. Hannah is haunted by guilt as she remains healthy while her friends are struck down. Isolated and afraid, she prays for help.\nElsewhere in the village, tempers simmer, panic escalates and long-buried secrets threaten to emerge.\nBursting with Carson's trademark wit, profound empathy and soaring imagination, The Raptures explores how tragedy can unite a small community - and tear it apart. At its heart is the extraordinary resilience of one young girl. As the world crumbles around her, she must find the courage to be different in a place where conforming feels like the only option available.\nDarkly funny, highly inventive and deeply moving, The Raptures is an unmissable novel of 2022.

The Raptures: ‘Original and exciting, terrifying and hilarious’ Sunday Times Ireland

Genre Fiction

Penguin (Transworld)

New fiction by:\nSuad Aldarra, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Jan Carson, Elaine Feeney, Oona Frawley, Sinéad Gleeson, Anna Jean Hughes, Caleb Klaces, Naomi Krüger, Henrietta McKervey, Paul McVeigh, Mary Morrissy, Nuala O'Connor, and Chris Wright\nTo live with dementia is to develop extraordinary and various new ways of being – linguistically, cognitively and practically. The storyteller operates similarly, using words and ideas creatively to reveal a slightly different perspective of the world.\nIn this anthology of fourteen new short stories, commissioned by Jan Carson and Jane Lugea, some of the best contemporary writers from Ireland and the UK powerfully and poignantly explore the depths and breadth of the real dementia experience, traversing age, ethnicity, class and gender, sex and consent. Each writer’s story is drawn from their own personal experience of dementia and told with outrageous and dark humour, empathy and startling insight. Here are heroes and villains, tricksters and saints, mothers, fathers, lovers, friends, characters whose past has overshadowed their present and characters who are making a huge impact on the world they currently find themselves in. They might have dementia, but dementia is only a small part of who they are. They will challenge, frustrate, inspire and humble you.\nAbove all, these brilliant pieces of short fiction disrupt the perceived notions of what dementia is and, in their diversity, honesty and authenticity begin to normalise an illness that affects so many and break down the stigma endured by those living with it every day.\nFind out more about the AHRC-funded research project based at Queen's University Belfast, from which this anthology has emerged: www.blogs.qub.ac.uk/dementiafiction/

A Little Unsteadily into Light: New Dementia-Inspired Fiction

Lugea, Jane

New Island Books

The novel opens one week after Mr. Orange abandons his family in a pay-by-the-week motel on the outskirts of Portland and takes off for Mexico. Mrs. Orange is devastated and depressed, possibly still suffering the side effects of giving birth to Malcolm’s newborn brother Ross in the parking lot of a shopping mall. Malcolm is delighted, anticipating his first permanent home. He coerces his unresponsive mother into taking a job at a local retirement village and as part of her pay the family are allowed to move into Chalet 13, becoming the youngest residents on a cul-de-sac of elderly individuals and couples, each with their own story of loss and survival to share. Two weeks after moving into Chalet 13, Malcolm finds himself covered in tiny, rapidly enlarging holes; he concludes that he is literally disappearing. As his mother is so traumatized that she has lost her grip on English and cannot bring herself to touch her own children. Malcolm is forced to employ the assistance of his elderly neighbors as he embarks upon a quest to find an antidote before he disappears completely.REVIEWS "The best debut novel I've read in years."Ian Samson"At its best, Malcolm Orange Disappears reminds the reader of Kurt Vonnegut and other masters of the absurd - Carson can be very, very funny."The Sunday Business Post"A highly original book; very quirky."Irish Examiner

Malcolm Orange Disappears

Literary

Liberties Press

Each day of 2015 Jan Carson wrote a short story on the back of a postcard and mailed it to a friend. Each of these tiny stories was inspired by an event, an overheard conversation, a piece of art or just a fleeting glance of something worth thinking about further.
Collected in one volume, Carson’s postcards present a panoramic view of contemporary Belfast — its coffee shops, streets and museums and airports — and offer it to the wider world. Even as they seem to spring from a writer’s solitary perspective, taken together, these observations and their distribution speak of human connectedness. Like a pleasant surprise in the mail, this collection reminds us how many friendships are born and strengthened in a story shared.
Illustrated by Benjamin Phillips.

Postcard Stories

Essays & Correspondence

The Emma Press

Children's Children is a collection of fifteen short stories which cast a darkly humorous and oftentimes acidic eye, over life in post-conflict Northern Ireland. The stories contained in the collection are an eclectic selection of pieces which vary from traditional literary fiction to magic realism and subtle experiments with the short story form. They deal with the theme of legacy; the achievements, issues and problems this generation has inherited from the previous. Disillusioned street preachers, adulterous grocery shoppers, robotic brothers and child burglars are all given voice to express their experiences of life in contemporary Northern Ireland as Carson blurs the line between social commentary and modern parable.

Children's Children

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carson, Jan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Carson, Jan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carson, Jan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Fire Starters

Untitled 2

Quickly, While They Still Have Horses: Stories

The Last Resort

Fire Starters

The Raptures: ‘Original and exciting, terrifying and hilarious’ Sunday Times Ireland

A Little Unsteadily into Light: New Dementia-Inspired Fiction

Malcolm Orange Disappears

Postcard Stories

Children's Children