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A Ghost in the Throat

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A Ghost in the Throat

By: Doireann Ní Ghríofa
Narrated by: Siobhán McSweeney
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Nominated for the Desmond Elliot Prize 

A true original. In this stunningly unusual prose debut, Doireann Ní Ghríofa sculpts essay and autofiction to explore inner life and the deep connection felt between two writers centuries apart.

In the 1700s, an Irish noblewoman, on discovering her husband has been murdered, drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary poem. Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill s Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire, famously referred to by Peter Levi, professor of poetry at Oxford University, as 'the greatest poem written in either Ireland or Britain during the eighteenth century'.

In the present day, a young mother narrowly avoids tragedy. On encountering the poem, she becomes obsessed with its parallels with her own life, and sets out to track down the rest of the story. A Ghost in the Throat is a devastating and timeless tale about one woman freeing her voice by reaching into the past and finding another's.

©2020 Doireann Ní Ghríofa (P)2021 W F Howes Essays Infants & Toddlers Literary History & Criticism Parenting & Families Nonfiction Haunted
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I feel that this is a book that benefits from being an audiobook. I loved the narration. I was surprised how engrossed I got in the tales interwoven and the stories of the lives through time

Captivating and beautifully narrated

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The self reflective story of a woman's journey through childbirth, breast-feeding and weaning and the forgotten 18th century poetess that inspired her, nourished her and haunted her. A really beautiful text. I gobbled it up.

Poetic, original and deeply touching

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This is the best book I've read in years, it is a joy. A balance of political, emotional In daily hum drum of Irish female life. Interwoven with a poem is genius! The narration is perfect! I shall miss Siobhan's voice reading such beauty.

outstanding

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This is a great book, and the language is beautiful. The narration is unfortunately very average - the narrator reads some passages way too fast, stumbles over some words and mispronounces others.

Interesting

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This is a "female text" combining memoire with research on the history of a poem and its female writer. While I loved the structure and the voice of the reader, the poetry of the words and it's obviously written by a brilliant woman, I find it difficult to connect to the main character. Sometimes it feels like the text fell short of going into the depth of the emotions. Maybe it's because I don't have chil

an authentic story

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