Doireann Ní Ghríofa

The genre of creative non-fiction has never been more playful with form, and so this issue of Hinterland celebrates the art of experimentation. Headlining the issue we have an epistolary essay from Jenn Ashworth (Ghosted, Notes Made While Falling) written to her younger self’s favourite author. We also sit down to chat with Doireann Ní Ghríofa about her hybrid work of non-fiction and auto-fiction, A Ghost in the Throat. Also featuring writing by Chris Beckett, Chris Cusack, Pune Dracker, Jacqueline Ellis, Jordan Harrison-Twist, Alice Kent, Laura Knott, Aaron Landsman, Carla Montemayor and Jon Paul Roberts.

From the author of A Ghost in the Throat, an unforgettable book - both history and ghost story - that will leave you gasping by its final page. In the city of Cork, a derelict Victorian mental hospital is being converted into modern apartments. One passerby has always flinched as she passes the place. Had her birth occurred in another decade, she too might have lived within those walls. Now, she notices a sign: FOR SALE. It is the first of many signs. Following them, she finds herself drawn into an irresistible river of forgotten voices, those of the women who knew this place best: insistent, vivid and true. They murmur from archives and old records; they whisper from stairwells and walls. Among them - and in one figure in particular -- she may find meaning, solace, rage; her own salvation, perhaps, or her own vanishing? A work of sublime intensity and tenderness, Said the Dead breaks the boundaries between worlds -- past and present, imagined and real -- to make something lasting and new: an experience full of danger, full of love and full of truth. Praise for the work of Doireann Ní Ghríofa 'The effect is electric, like seeing a ghost returned to life.' New Statesman 'Obliterates every clear definition of genre and form . . . Astounding and utterly fresh.' Irish Independent 'Lush, lyrical prose that dazzles readers from the get-go . . . sumptuous, almost symphonic, in its intensity.' Sunday Times 'Past versus present, blood versus milk, birth versus death . . . dichotomies abound, but the questions of women's lived experiences and who history remembers link them all.' Paris Review

«Første gang vi møttes, var jeg et barn, og hun hadde vært død i flere hundre år.» Et spøkelse i halsen er et sjangeroverskridende prosjekt som utforsker to forfatteres dype forbindelse på tvers av århundrer. På 1700-tallet finner en irsk adelskvinne ektemannen drept på brutalt vis. Hun drikker håndfuller av blodet hans og komponerer et eksepsjonelt dikt. I nåtiden navigerer en ung kvinne tilværelsen som flerbarnsmor. En dag unnslipper hun så vidt å havne i en alvorlig ulykke. Da hun gjenoppdager det gamle diktet hun hadde som pensum på skolen, blir hun besatt av den irske adelskvinnen og av parallellene til sitt eget liv, og bestemmer seg for å spore opp resten av hennes historie. Et spøkelse i halsen er en spesiell og unik bok om litteratur, morskap og forbindelsen mellom kvinner, og om hvordan fortiden stadig forplanter seg i nåtiden. Oversatt fra engelsk av Hilde Lyng

In this new North American edition of her poetry, award-winning Irish-language poet Doireann N Ghr ofa revisits and retranslates poems from her previous collections D lasair (2012), Oighear (2017), Lies (2018), and To Star the Dark (2021). " This is a lunar collection," Adam Hanna writes in his introduction, " and its nocturnes partake of the night's solaces and solitudes... a lunar world that is gravid with moods and premonitions."

"Ett spöke i strupen är enastående roman ... full av ord, fraser och stycken som jag stryker under, läser om och med största sannolikhet kommer att återkomma till i framtiden. Det säregna och samtidigt självklara sätt som Doireann Ní Ghríofa placerar moderskap och översättning jämte varandra är omöjligt att värja sig emot."- Lina Wolff, Sydsvenskan "Det som gör Ní Ghríofas bok så enastående är hur hon suddar ut gränserna mellan tiden och de levande och de döda och litteraturen och vardagslivet - de blir alla trådar i samma väv som vecklar ut sig när man slår upp bokens pärmar."- Peter Fröberg Idling, Vi "Inte visst jag att allt jag längtade efter var en roman av irländsk småbarnsmamma som snöar in på en 1700-talspoet. Men så var det. Och det var länge sedan jag läste något så levande!"- Jenny Högström, Göteborgs-Posten Ett spöke i strupen är tveklöst den bästa roman jag läst i år. - Lisa Marques Jagemark, Borås Tidning Som bröstmjölkspumpande nybliven trebarnsmamma drar Doireann Ní Ghríofa sig till minnes den iriska litteraturens kanske främsta diktepos, skrivet av Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill på 1700-talet. Tagen av diktens handling och sin egen livssituation blir Ní Ghríofa besatt av idén att översätta eposet och söka upp dess ursprung. Maniskt går hon allt djupare in i dikten och arbetet att språkligt överföra den, samtidigt som hon skildrar sin situation som mamma och kvinna i Irland idag, kvinnornas situation på samma plats på 1700-talet och frågar sig hur det kommer sig att kvinnors dikter kom att bevaras muntligt och männens skriftligt. Som ett möte mellan W. G, Sebald och Maggie Nelson sammanför Ní Ghríofa i denna självbiografiska roman det kroppsliga i mödernet och erotiken med lingvistiska hierarkier och litteraturens kraft. Utsedd till Årets bok i The New York Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The Irish Times, The New Statesman, Sveriges Radio, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, Göteborgs-Posten och Borås Tidning.

Som bröstmjölkspumpande nybliven trebarnsmamma drar Doireann Ní Ghríofa sig till minnes den iriska litteraturens kanske främsta diktepos, skrivet av Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill på 1700-talet. Tagen av diktens handling och sin egen livssituation blir Ní Ghríofa besatt av idén att översätta eposet och söka upp dess ursprung. Maniskt går hon allt djupare in i dikten och arbetet att språkligt överföra den, samtidigt som hon skildrar sin situation som mamma och kvinna i Irland idag, kvinnornas situation på samma plats på 1700-talet och frågar sig hur det kommer sig att kvinnors dikter kom att bevaras muntligt och männens skriftligt. Som ett möte mellan W. G, Sebald och Maggie Nelson sammanför Ní Ghríofa i denna självbiografiska roman det kroppsliga i mödernet och erotiken med lingvistiska hierarkier och litteraturens kraft." Ett spöke i strupen är enastående roman ... full av ord, fraser och stycken som jag stryker under, läser om och med största sannolikhet kommer att återkomma till i framtiden. Det säregna och samtidigt självklara sätt som Doireann Ní Ghríofa placerar moderskap och översättning jämte varandra är omöjligt att värja sig emot."- Lina Wolff, Sydsvenskan "Ett spöke i strupen är tveklöst den bästa roman jag läst i år."- Lisa Marques Jagemark, Borås Tidning "Inte visst jag att allt jag längtade efter var en roman av irländsk småbarnsmamma som snöar in på en 1700-talspoet. Men så var det. Och det var länge sedan jag läste något så levande!"- Jenny Högström, Göteborgs-Posten "Det som gör Ní Ghríofas bok så enastående är hur hon suddar ut gränserna mellan tiden och de levande och de döda och litteraturen och vardagslivet - de blir alla trådar i samma väv som vecklar ut sig när man slår upp bokens pärmar."- Peter Fröberg Idling, ViUtsedd till Årets bok av The New York Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The Irish Times och The New Statesman.

A true original. In this stunningly unusual prose debut, Doireann Ni Ghriofa sculpts essay and autofiction to explore inner life and the deep connection felt between two writers centuries apart. In the 1700s, an Irish noblewoman, on discovering her husband has been murdered, drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary poem. In the present day, a young mother narrowly avoids tragedy. On encountering the poem, she becomes obsessed with its parallels with her own life, and sets out to track down the rest of the story. A devastating and timeless tale about one woman freeing her voice by reaching into the past and finding another's.

"One of the best books of this dreadful year."--Irish Independent When we first met, I was a child, and she had been dead for centuries. I am eleven, a dark-haired child given to staring out window ... Her voice makes it 1773, a fine day in May, and puts English soldiers crouching in ambush; I add ditch-water to drench their knees. Their muskets point towards a young man who is falling from his saddle in slow, slow motion. A woman hurries in and kneels over him, her voice rising in an antique formula of breath and syllable the teacher calls a caoineadh, a keen to lament the dead. In the eighteenth century, on discovering her husband has been murdered, an Irish noblewoman drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary lament that reaches across centuries to the young Doireann Ní Ghríofa, whose fascination with it is later rekindled when she narrowly avoids fatal tragedy in her own life and becomes obsessed with learning everything she can about the poem Peter Levi has famously called "the greatest poem written in either Ireland or Britain" during its era. A kaleidoscopic blend of memoir, autofiction, and literary studies, A Ghost in the Throat moves fluidly between past and present, quest and elegy, poetry and the people who make it.

‘ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THIS DREADFUL YEAR’ – SUNDAY TIMES A true original. In this stunningly unusual prose debut, Doireann Ni Ghriofa sculpts essay and autofiction to explore inner life and the deep connection felt between two writers centuries apart. In the 1700s, an Irish noblewoman, on discovering her husband has been murdered, drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary poem. In the present day, a young mother narrowly avoids tragedy. On encountering the poem, she becomes obsessed with its parallels with her own life, and sets out to track down the rest of the story. A Ghost in the Throat is a devastating and timeless tale about one woman freeing her voice by reaching into the past and finding another's.

When does a poem tell the truth? When is it a lie? Intimate moments carefully re-appraised (first dates, break ups, young parenthood, etc.) are the raw material of these vivid and wholly engaging poems, written in Irish, and translated here by the author - a process that itself raises questions about poetry and truth. But a great deal of the power of N Ghr ofa's work comes from the way her personal history links her to the wider world - to the imaginative encounters that prompt so many of the poems, to an acute awareness of the restless nature of language itself, and not least to the women who preceded her and who remain a steadying and guiding presence throughout.

When does a poem tell the truth? When is it a lie? Intimate moments carefully re-appraised (first dates, break ups, young parenthood, etc.) are the raw material of these vivid and wholly engaging poems, written in Irish, and translated here by the author - a process that itself raises questions about poetry and truth. But a great deal of the power of N Ghr ofa's work comes from the way her personal history links her to the wider world - to the imaginative encounters that prompt so many of the poems, to an acute awareness of the restless nature of language itself, and not least to the women who preceded her and who remain a steadying and guiding presence throughout.