Sarah Bernstein & Colin Barrett

A reading by the acclaimed fiction writers Sarah Bernstein and Colin Barrett.

In Sarah Bernstein's Booker shortlisted second novel, Study for Obedience (Granta) a young woman moves to a remote northern country to be a helper to her brother. The youngest child of many siblings, she has spent most of her life complying with the wishes of others. Alone now in a hostile community, a dream of independence begins to stir. A beautiful Kafka-like portrait of a sensitive mind searching against the odds for truth, by a major new literary talent.

In Colin Barrett’s debut novel, Wild Houses (Penguin), the gritty and witty West of Ireland underbelly that has earned him an international standing as a writer of short fiction, is expanded to big characters under small town pressure. With intensely lyrical colloquialism, Wild Houses pulses with a mix of compassionate insight and violent competitiveness. A brimming and brilliantly conceived narco-plot by an Irish fiction trailblazer.

Readings will be followed by a conversation with Sam Thompson and Q&A, with audience participation encouraged.

‘Study for Obedience is one of the best novels of the year’ – Daily Telegraph

‘You don’t so much read a Sarah Bernstein novel as get trapped inside it’ – The Times

'Sublime … Wild Houses is a thrillingly moreish novel with some of the sharpest dialogue I’ve read in any recent debut and characters who held me captive until the very last page' - Sunday Times

'Wild Houses is strange and beautiful ... A book to live inside' - Sally Rooney

Please be aware that all events at Listowel Writers' Week will be recorded and photographed for promotional and archival purposes. Your presence constitutes consent to be filmed or photographed. Thank you.

More About Sarah Bernstein

Sarah Bernstein is from Montreal and lives in Scottish Northwest Highlands. She is the author of two novels: The Coming Bad Days, and her most recent, Study for Obedience,

which was shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, won the Giller Prize, and was longlisted for the Highland Book Prize.

More about Colin Barrett

Colin Barrett grew up in County Mayo. His stories have been published in the Stinging Fly, Granta, Harper's and the New Yorker. His first book, the short story collection Young Skins, won the Guardian First Book Award, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. A film adaptation of his short story 'Calm with Horses' was released in 2019. His second collection, Homesickness, made the New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year and was a Book of the Year in Oprah Daily and the Irish Times. His first novel, Wild Houses, was published in 2024.

Listowel Writer's Week: where readers celebrate, and writers find their flow

Listowel Writer's Week is Ireland's oldest literary festival, and one of its most prestigious. Famously hospitable, the beautiful North Kerry town of Listowel is internationally renowned as a wellspring of literary inspiration and heritage. The 2024 Listowel Writer's Week Festival programme, exploring the theme Mother Nature, has been curated by the poet Martin Dyar.

See writersweek.ie for more details and the full 2024 festival programme.