The Colony

AN IRISH TIMES BEST IRISH BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Audrey Magee

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9780571367627
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

AN IRISH TIMES BEST IRISH BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022

'Vivid and memorable.' SARAH MOSS
'Luminous.' Observer
'I utterly ADORED it.' MARIAN KEYES

He handed the easel to the boatman, reaching down the pier wall towards the sea.

Mr Lloyd has decided to travel to the island by boat without engine - the authentic experience.

Unbeknownst to him, Mr Masson will also soon be arriving for the summer. Both will strive to encapsulate the truth of this place - one in his paintings, the other by capturing its speech, the language he hopes to preserve.

But the people who live on this rock - three miles long and half-a-mile wide - have their own views on what is being recorded, what is being taken and what is given in return. Soft summer days pass, and the islanders are forced to question what they value and what they desire. As the autumn beckons, and the visitors head home, there will be a reckoning.

''Beautifully written.' STELLA, The Telegraph
' The Colony contains multitudes. . . with much of it just visible on the surface, like the flicker of a smile or a shark in the water.' The Times
' The Colony is a novel about big, important things.' Financial Times
'Beautiful, haunting and incredibly powerful book.' FÍONA SCARLETT

Table of contents

• Landing Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• He handed the easel to the boatman
• The policeman’s wife
• Do you see it, Mr Lloyd?
• The colonel with the Queen’s Own Highlanders
• After breakfast, he asked James again
• Alexander Gore is a full-time member
• On his way to the cliffs
• Joseph McKee is walking on Saturday
• He used charcoal
• The British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary
• He saw the boat on the horizon
• John Hannigan is a Protestant man
• Masson tapped on the door
• Francis Barney Sullivan is at home
• Masson sat on a chair in the yard
• John Henry Scott drives a milk tanker
• He was woken by dawn rain
• The body of James Joseph Porter
• The Irish language is dying
• Alan John McMillan is walking
• Masson made a pot of coffee
• Michael Kearney is a Catholic man
• Mairéad poured whiskey
• Patrick O’Hanlon is having a drink
• James carried eggs, fresh milk, ham
• The IRA parks a pig trailer
• She returned to the hut
• Jim Wright and his twenty-one-year-old daughter
• That poor woman away on her holiday
• James Joseph McCann is walking
• Over ten thousand people
• George Walsh is a fifty-one-year-old Protestant
• Did you hear the Cardinal, Mam?
• Paul Reece, a nineteen-year-old signalman
• They’re not paying much attention
• A woman in West Belfast
• Lloyd woke early
• William Whitten, sixty-five, dies in hospital
• Mairéad pushed open the door
• Eamon Ryan is a civil servant
• James brought a cup of tea
• William Arthur McGraw
• Mairéad carried cleaned clothes
• The picnic baskets are packed
• Did you hear, Mam?
• A British Army convoy is driving
• James turned the dial on the radio
• Lady Brabourne, eighty-three
• James knocked and opened Lloyd’s door
• John Patrick Hardy is having dinner
• He took the drawing
• Gerry Lennon is packing fruit
• James carried the teapot
• Henry Corbett is twenty-seven years of age
• Bean Uí Néill lifted a bottle of whiskey
• Hugh O’Halloran, a twenty-eight-year-old
• It’s going mad up there, Mam
• In the morning, at seven
• Gabriel Wiggins is washing dishes
• Acknowledgement
• About the Author
• Also by the Author
• Copyright