Every One Still Here

The next big thing in books?... Astonishing... These six stories don't need any biographical scaffolding - they stand strong on their own, exploring themes of inherited trauma, yes, but also illness, fertility, parenthood and love... The writing here is stark, unflinching, bald. It feels genuinely new. I get the feeling that Ní Chuinn would hate the term "voice of a generation", but it may be foisted on them nonetheless - and with good reason * Sunday Times *
This brilliant short-story collection confronts the knotty truths of Northern Ireland's bloody past... Ní Chuinn's writing is often terse, blunt, its subject matter better served by urgency than elegance... A writer of subtlety despite the polemic that veins these stories... Reading this book as the Israeli state kills unprecedented numbers of Palestinian civilians in Gaza feels particularly difficult, but also valuable... Ní Chuinn's stories are unpredictable and memorable... Extraordinary -- Chris Power * Guardian *
'Reading Ní Chuinn's work, one thing quickly becomes clear: this is a phenomenal debut... Ní Chuinn's prose is austere and precise... This is heart-stopping writing, and I hope for more to come from the mysterious Ní Chuinn' * Observer *
There's excitement building around this young writer from the north of Ireland... Ranging from the generational trauma of the Troubles to medical students' first dissection, the stories are scrupulous, surprising and entirely gripping. The arrival of a stunning new voice * Guardian *
Utterly brilliant... A remarkable debut... Ni Chuinn heads into the heart of the characters' lives and sets about a delicate delineation of their most devastating emotions, delivered with tenderness and understanding in prose that is hypnotic and melodic * Daily Mail *
'For a publisher to agree to publish an anonymous author...that writer has to be extraordinary. And Ní Chuinn is' -- Rhiannon Lucy Cosslet * Guardian *
This is a brilliant and remarkable book... Immediately asks to be considered among the island's signal 21st-century literary achievements... These stories open out and close again in strange folds and planes. They operate like some theoretical shape in geometry that has more surfaces than are physically possible - they are Escher houses, Klein bottles. Or human minds... In this extraordinary capacity to embody process - in this context, another word for human consciousness - lies the essence of this superb book's quietly radical realism -- Kevin Power * Irish Times *
Here's a writer who knows how to swerve gracefully from the expected. Her work is instinctive, intriguing and truly exciting. I cannot wait to see what's in store for her -- Lisa McInerney
It's a long time since I've read a short story collection where I've felt such an aching tenderness for the people within its pages... These stories are rich. They have heart and weight. This is singular, controlled, dextrous writing from someone who is now one of my favourite writers -- Wendy Erskine
A phenomenal collection - these stories have a poise, a precision, an anger, a melancholy, a way of skewering things, that is entirely Ní Chuinn's own. A formidable debut by an astonishing new voice -- Lucy Caldwell
These are exceptional stories, stark yet richly textured and told in a voice that is at once plain-spoken and lyrical. Liadan Ní Chuinn is the real deal -- Louise Kennedy
An extraordinary book by an extraordinary author who refuses to look the other way. Ní Chuinn's incantatory sentences quiver like seismographs, registering the quakes and ruptures that can crack a life in two -- Thomas Morris
Liadan Ní Chuinn is a phenomenal writer, with such a striking, distinctive style. Surreal and yet vivid, wondrous and stark... It's like nothing else. Something new and startling is happening in this work. Fiction is being rejuvenated again. Anything seems possible -- Danny Denton
These are exceptional stories - and necessary reading, rendering lives, connections, violence, and trauma in ways that are utterly transformative -- Neil Hegarty
This book creates an integrated kaleidoscope - a contradiction of course - which each of these stories manages adroitly. The local dialect of History comes teeming slowly in, shocking us with its immutable presence. And here's a really important thing, I wanted to keep reading -- Evelyn Conlon
An exciting new voice on the literary scene... These are tales of intergenerational trauma, dislocation and isolation. Ní Chuinn's characters are varied, de-stabilised by events beyond their control, but still here, fully alive on the page... Outstanding... This is a stunning debut * Irish Independent *