The highly anticipated novel from the internationally bestselling author of The Pull of the Stars and Room
'This is Donoghue at her strange, unsettling best.' - Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet
'Combines pressure-cooker intensity and radical isolation, to stunning effect.' – Margaret Atwood via Twitter
In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks – young Trian and old Cormac – he travels down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. Their extraordinary landing spot is now known as Skellig Michael. But in such a place, far from all other humanity, what will survival mean?
Haunting, moving and vividly told, Haven displays Emma Donoghue's trademark world-building and psychological intensity – but this tale is like nothing she has ever written before . . .
One of The Times Books of the Year 2022
One of Easons 'Favourite Book of the Year 2022'.
The Irish Times 'Books to Look Out For in 2022'.
Pre-order Learned By Heart, the dazzling new love story from Emma Donoghue.
The highly anticipated novel from the internationally bestselling author of The Pull of the Stars and Room
'This is Donoghue at her strange, unsettling best.' - Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet
'Combines pressure-cooker intensity and radical isolation, to stunning effect.' – Margaret Atwood via Twitter
In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks – young Trian and old Cormac – he travels down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. Their extraordinary landing spot is now known as Skellig Michael. But in such a place, far from all other humanity, what will survival mean?
Haunting, moving and vividly told, Haven displays Emma Donoghue's trademark world-building and psychological intensity – but this tale is like nothing she has ever written before . . .
One of The Times Books of the Year 2022
One of Easons 'Favourite Book of the Year 2022'.
The Irish Times 'Books to Look Out For in 2022'.
Pre-order Learned By Heart, the dazzling new love story from Emma Donoghue.
Reviews-
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Aidan Kelly's performance expresses the complex emotional experiences of three monks who are seeking solitude on a deserted island. Set in seventh-century Ireland, this work of historical fiction follows three monks who feel called by God to make a spiritual haven set apart from the temptations of the rest of the world. As time passes, their leader, Artt, becomes more and more insistent about their calling, while Cormac and Trian slowly fill with doubt. Kelly's Irish accent takes us to another place and time, and his narration perfectly captures the rising tension as the monks attempt to rid themselves of anxiety and fear while trying to survive with little more than the clothes on their backs. K.D.W. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
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September 5, 2022
Donoghue (The Pull of the Stars) returns with an intricate slow-burn about three monks who start a monastery on an isolated island in seventh-century Ireland. As it opens, priest Artt dreams about an island where he believes he’s to pilgrimage with two others to found a monastic retreat. He picks the old monk Cormac, a skilled builder and gardener, and the young monk Trian, a piper, and both men pledge their lives to him. They set off on a small boat in search of the haven, and on the fifth day they see two islands jutting from the water. They land on the bigger one, a steep cathedral of rock possessed by an army of birds. There, high on a plateau, Artt, the future prior, decides they will camp then build, soon putting Cormac to work on a great cross and Trian on copying the Bible. As the prior turns a deaf ear to the others’ concerns about dwindling supplies, tensions rise over his monastic demands and their narrowing chances of survival as summer dips into fall. The slow pacing tends to wear, but the narrative picks up toward the end with a surprising twist. Patient readers will be rewarded with a thoughtful tale of faith, isolation, and blind obedience. Agent: Kathleen Anderson, Anderson Literary. - The Mail on Sunday This book kept me up half the night - I was unable to put it down, and read it in one spellbound gulp. It is everything a novel should be: compassionate, unpredictable, and questioning. Haven is Donoghue at her strange, unsettling best.
- Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet A beautiful and timely novel about isolation, passion and the conflict between obedience and self-preservation. The island setting and the characters stayed with me long after I finished reading
- The Observer In 7th C, Ireland, three men set sail to a bird-thick island to find God. EmmaDonoghue combines pressure-cooker intensity + radical isolation, to stunning effect. What is Divine Grace? Purity of soul? Virtue? Not what they think.
- The Guardian A grim and grisly tale of monastic privation and isolation in seventh-century Ireland . . . [Donoghue] deftly captures the elemental nature of the relationship between her protagonists and the natural world; how it's both their benefactor and their tormentor, a source of life, but also of death.
- Financial Times What a beautiful, intense, blazing, richly-woven yet spartan and unsparing book this is. I couldn't put it down. Lyrical and then visceral, appearing at one moment tranquil and another so intense it's like being bitten and clawed . . . it is both a story about three men of God surviving with almost nothing on an island, and another about dictatorship, isolation, true fraternity, love, the nature of faith and man's place in the natural world . . . It's utterly brilliant.
- Sarah Moss, author of Ghostwall and Summerwater A patient, thoughtful novel with much to say about spirituality, hope, and human failure, and about the miracle of mercy.
- Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures Haven is a gentle book, a fascinating exploration of human nature and an immensely enjoyable read.
- The Washington Post A remarkably engrossing tale
- Margaret Atwood via Twitter Brooding, dreamlike . . . it's in descriptions of the physical world that Donoghue's prose soars . . . Likewise, among themes that include isolation and devotion, its ecological warnings are its most resonant.
- The Daily Telegraph Donoghue excels in creating not just a world but a worldview that is far removed from our own . . . this is a bold, thoughtful novel.
- Lucy Scholes Donoghue wrings unlikely psychodrama from such everyday chores of monastic life as copying a manuscript or building a drystone wall. But if that doesn't grab you, rest assured that the devastating denouement amply repays the reader's patience — and has a thing or two to say about modern-day moral panics, too
- Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry I am already an admirer of Emma Donoghue's writing and this novel had me in its grasp from the beginning. It was so bleak and brutal about the harshness and fanaticism of the monastic life; I was absolutely convinced by her depiction of scratching a life on the bare island and the power play between the trinity of monks, and their motivations and beliefs. I read it in a couple of sittings with a growing sense of foreboding and desperation to know their fates. A powerful story, brilliantly imagined.
- Esi Edugyan, Booker-shortlisted author of Washington Black Sinister, heart-wrenching and beautifully written.
- Richard Kearney, author of The Wake of Imagination A grim and grisly tale of monastic privation and isolation in seventh-century Ireland . . . [Donoghue] deftly captures the elemental nature of the relationship between her protagonists and the natural world; how it's both their benefactor and their tormentor, a source of life, but also of...
