Mary Costello’s ACADEMY STREET is taken the world by storm and is already receiving incredible endorsements from no one other than JM Cotzee and fellow Irish writer John Boyne

'With extraordinary devotion, Mary Costello brings to life a woman who would otherwise have faded into oblivion amid the legions of the meek and the unobtrusive.' - JM Coetzee

‘To recount a life story in a novel is a difficult task. To do so with brevity and unsentimental honesty takes greatness. A powerful and emotional novel from one of literature’s finest new voices.’ John Boyne

“She stood on the edge of the grass. She hovered between worlds, deciphering the ground, tracing in mid-air the hall, the dining-room, the stairs. She was despairingly close to home now, to the rooms and the voices that contained the first names for home. Memories abounded and her heart pounded and history broke in"

Growing up in the west of Ireland in the 1940s Tess is a shy introverted child. But beneath her quiet exterior lies a heart of fire. A fire that will later drive her to make her home among the hurly burly of 1960s New York. Over four decades and a life lived with quiet intensity on Academy Street in upper Manhattan, Tess encounters ferocious love and calamitous loss. But what endures is her bravery and fortitude, and her striking insights even as she is 'floating close to hazard.'

Joyous and heart-breaking, restrained but sweeping, this is a profoundly moving story that charts one woman's quest for belonging amid the dazzle and tumult of America's greatest city. 

Mary Costello, originally from Galway, lives in Dublin. Her early stories were published in New Irish Writing and she was short listed for a Hennessy Award. Her first book, a collection of short stories entitled The China Factory, was published in 2012 by Stinging Fly Press and by Text Publishing in ANZ. The collection was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award (UK) and short listed for the Irish Book Awards. 

And more praise:

‘Mary Costello’s writing has the kind of urgency that the great problems demand – call them themes; they are the kind of problem that make a writer. With a bit of luck, they could keep her at the desk for the rest of her life.’ Anne Enright

“These stories want all of you, mind and body and soul, like a consummation.’ —Sonya Chung, The Millions 

 "A publishing coup . . . there are shades of John McGahern and William Trevor in many of these disquieting tales of loss and regret but Costello's nimble, exacting prose style is very much her own. The stories engage with the human condition in such a profound way it's no wonder they leave an indelible mark." —Daragh Reddin, The Metro Herald (4-star review)

"These twelve stories examine the dark side of everyday life . . . Echoing Thomas Hardy, she reveals how even ordinary lives can be full of drama and incident . . . Beautifully crafted but never pretentious, Costello's stories are stark and honest and her characters linger long after you close the book." —Books Ireland

"Twelve perfect stories...Mary Costello has an acute ear for dialogue, but her real talent is for choosing what to leave unsaid . . . A collection of exquisite stories so intricately wrought, so unique and enthralling as to be utterly bewitching." —Lorraine Courtney, Sunday Independent

"The China Factory is a remarkable debut. It epitomises everything that is special and wonderful about the short story genre. It introduces us to a powerful new voice in Irish literature, a voice that we will hopefully hear again and again." —Des Kenny, Galway Advertiser

"A sense of inescapable isolation runs through Mary Costello's unsettling, beautifully-crafted short story collection . . . They are connected thematically and by the clarity and precision of Costello's writing, but also through recurring images and events that echo in a dreamlike way throughout the book . . . A highly impressive, tightly-written debut." —Chris Binchy, The Sunday Business Post

Foreign sales so far: France (Seuil), Italy (Bollati)

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kontakt:

Agata Żabowska

agata@literatura.com.pl