Rencontre with Louise Kennedy

‘Trespasses’ is Northern Irish writer Louise Kennedy’s masterly debut novel. Set in 1970s Belfast, a period she lived through as a teenager, it is a story told with, as the Guardian says, ‘such compulsive attention to the textures of its world that every page feels like a moral and intellectual event’. It begins with the chance meeting of Cushla, a young Catholic woman, and Michael, a married man, in her family’s pub. He is a Protestant lawyer who is committed to civil rights for Catholics; she a primary school teacher. Their lives are changed forever in a manner that Kennedy renders with observant, ironic and sensual detail.

Tonight she launches the French translation of this powerful novel, following its ebullient reception by English-speaking press and public alike.

'Like Sally Rooney mixed with a political thriller' RUSSELL KANE