Nuit de la Littérature
Billy O’Callaghan, Life Sentences

This year’s 'Nuit de la Littérature’ takes place in the beautiful Institut suédois in the Marais. The CCI has invited author Billy O’Callaghan to represent Ireland amongst the twenty or so countries present over the evening. His second and latest novel Life Sentences is based on the author’s own family history from 1860 to 1982.

At just sixteen, Nancy leaves the small island of Cape Clear for the mainland, the only member of her family to survive the effects of the Great Famine. Finding work in a grand house on the edge of Cork City, she is irrepressibly drawn to the charismatic gardener Michael Egan, sparking a love affair and a devastating chain of events that unfolds over three generations. Spanning more than a century, this is the journey of a family hungry for redemption, and determined against all odds to be free.

“A superb and moving novel…. O’Callaghan is one of our finest writers, in the tradition of John McGahern and Brian Friel, and this is his best work yet.” (John Banville)
“A magnificent novel’ (Sunday Times Culture)


La Nuit de la littérature is organised by the Forum des Instituts Culturels Etrangers à Paris. The full programme and details of the evening are available at: www.ficep.info