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**SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024**

Carmel had been alone all her life. The baby knew this. They looked at each other, and all of time was there. The baby knew how vast her mother’s loneliness had been.

‘A magnificent novel’ SALLY ROONEY

Nell is a young woman with adventure on her mind. As she sets out into the world, she finds her family history hard to escape. For her mother, Carmel, Nell’s leaving home opens a space in her heart, where the turmoil of a lifetime begins to churn. Over them both falls the long shadow of Carmel’s famous father, an Irish poet of beautiful words and brutal actions.

From our greatest chronicler of family life, The Wren, The Wren is a story of the love that can unite us, and the individual acts that threaten this vital bond.

‘A triumph…treasure it’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘One of the great living writers on the subject of family’ NEW YORK TIMES

‘A must-read’ MARGARET ATWOOD (on Twitter)

‘Might just be Anne Enright’s best yet’ LOUISE KENNEDY

*A SUNDAY TIMES, OBSERVER, GUARDIAN, TLS, HARPER’S BAZAAR, NEW STATESMAN, THE NEW YORKER, TIME AND WASHINGTON POST BOOK OF THE YEAR*

*WINNER OF THE WRITER’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024*

Publisher Review

The Wren, The Wren is a magnificent novel. Anne Enright's stylistic brilliance seems to put the reader directly in touch with her characters and the rich territory of their lives -- Sally Rooney, author of NORMAL PEOPLE One of our greatest living novelists * The Times * These pages practically crackle with intelligence, compassion and wit. Phil McDaragh is so real I almost googled him. The Wren, The Wren might just be Anne Enright's best yet -- Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses Somehow both classic and thoroughly contemporary. Very few writers could capably achieve such a thing and I remain, as ever, in awe of Anne's talents -- Sara Baume, author of A Line Made by Walking Tender, acutely observed, shocking at times. Enright perfectly captures the experience of a woman in her twenties, thirties, forties and fifties. Women rise throughout The Wren, The Wren, rising above abusive relationships and casual abandonment, sometimes inflicting violence on each other - but still rising into better times. Magnificent -- Priscilla Morris, author of Black Butterflies The Wren, The Wren is simultaneously all text, and all subtext, because Anne Enright is a genius whose novels function on several planes. She takes on major Irish literary genres but amplifies them, transcends them, arriving at a new place, which we shall call love, which we shall call life, which we shall even call joy. -- Claire Kilroy, author of The Devil I Know I could not put this book down, and felt at a loss when I got to the end. A novel of great heft and intelligence, with that mix of wit, rage and great tenderness that is Enright's hallmark. In Nell I found the best depiction of the life and mind of a contemporary young woman I've read -- Mary Costello, author of Academy Street The unofficial rock star of literary fiction * Irish Times * One of the most significant writers of her generation... A master * Sunday Times * Alive and intricate, Enright's characters speak with a sharp-edged irony that opens into tenderness. As The Wren, The Wren unfolds, time does too. This is a humane and compulsive novel about the abandonments and reconciliations of love. Unsparing, witty, and full of hard-earned beauty -- Sean Hewitt, author of All Down Darkness Wide Stylistically magnificent and profoundly moving, Enright blows our hearts and minds to smithereens once again with The Wren, The Wren. Full of humour, intellect, empathy and grace this multi-generational novel is singular in its vim, freshness and wit -- Helen Cullen, author of The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually Anne Enright's style is as sharp and brilliant as Joan Didion's; the scope of her understanding is as wide as Alice Munro's; her vision of Ireland is as brave and original as Edna O'Brien's -- Colm Toibin, author of Brooklyn