Chairperson: Philip Coleman
‘First novels this complete and consuming come along very, very seldom.’ Jonathan Franzen on The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
‘A touch of Deadwood, a whiff of the Cohen brothers ‒ funny, touching and beautifully written‘ Christine Dwyer Hickey, Irish Times Books of the Year on Patrick de Witt’s The Sisters Brothers.
The great American novel is alive and well. Join two of its sharpest new literary exponents as they make their Dublin Writers Festival debut.
With its ten year gestation, subsequent bidding war, stratospheric advance and ubiquitous praise, Chad Harbach’s expansive debut novel The Art of Fielding is already steeped in literary mythology. Part campus novel, part baseball odyssey, this rites of passage story tells of two men whose ambitions and dreams, disappointments and ultimate loss of faith are compellingly intertwined.
The male psyche and eternal American themes are also at the heart of Patrick de Witt’s Booker-shortlisted cult western The Sisters Brothers. As sibling gunslingers Eli and Charlie Sisters embark on a violent and quixotic quest through Gold Rush America, their darkly comic meanderings reveal the infinite perversity of human motivation.
Two publishing sensations. Two blistering new talents. One unmissable literary encounter.