One by One in the Darkness

Last updated
One by One in the Darkness
Author Deirdre Madden
CountryNorthern Ireland
LanguageEnglish
Publisher Faber & Faber
Publication date
1996

One by One in the Darkness is a novel by Northern Irish author Deirdre Madden, published in 1996 by Faber & Faber. The novel explores the Troubles from a Catholic Nationalist point of view. The book was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction.

Contents

Background

Madden began writing the book in 1994, just before the anniversary of British troops arriving in Northern Ireland. [1]

Summary

Three Northern Irish sisters growing up in Ulster deal with political violence during the Troubles. [2]

Reception

In a retrospective review published in 2018, The Irish Times said the book was "more relevant than ever" and said it should be assigned reading in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. [3]

The New Hibernia Review noted the book "demonstrates the impossibility of pure forgiveness in the circumstances". [4]

Awards

One by One in the Darkness was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 1997. The award website said the novel "confirms Deirdre Madden’s reputation as one of Irish fiction’s most outstanding talents." [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seamus Heaney</span> Irish poet, playwright, and translator (1939–2013)

Seamus Justin Heaney was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. Heaney was and is still recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry in Ireland during his lifetime. American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats", and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was "the greatest poet of our age". Robert Pinsky has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller." Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Muldoon</span> Irish poet

Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he is currently both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University Professor in the Humanities and Founding Chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts. He held the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1999 to 2004 and has also served as president of the Poetry Society (UK) and Poetry Editor at The New Yorker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Chidgey</span> New Zealand writer

Catherine Chidgey is a New Zealand novelist, short-story writer and university lecturer. Her honours include the inaugural Prize in Modern Letters; the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship to Menton, France; Best First Book at both the New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize ; the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards; and the Janet Frame Fiction Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. G. Farrell</span> Writer (1935–1979)

James Gordon Farrell was an English-born novelist of Irish descent. He gained prominence for a series of novels known as "the Empire Trilogy", which deal with the political and human consequences of British colonial rule.

Nicholas Laird is a Northern Irish novelist and poet.

<i>Reading in the Dark</i> 1996 novel by Seamus Deane

Reading in the Dark is a novel written by Seamus Deane in 1996. The novel is set in Derry, Northern Ireland and extends from February 1945 through July 1971. The book won the 1996 Guardian Fiction Prize and the 1996 South Bank Show Annual Award for Literature, is a New York Times Notable Book, won the Irish Times International Fiction Prize and the Irish Literature Prize in 1997, besides being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1996. It has been translated into 20 languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph O'Neill (writer, born 1964)</span> Irish novelist & non-fiction writer

Joseph O'Neill is an Irish novelist and non-fiction writer. O'Neill's novel Netherland was awarded the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award.

Events during the year 1996 in Northern Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Kingsnorth</span> English writer and environmentalist

Paul Kingsnorth is an English writer who lives in the west of Ireland. He is a former deputy-editor of The Ecologist and a co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project.

Adelle Stripe is an English writer and journalist.

Deirdre Madden is a novelist from Northern Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Burns</span> Irish writer

Anna Burns FRSL is an author from Northern Ireland. Her novel Milkman won the 2018 Booker Prize, the 2019 Orwell Prize for political fiction, and the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.

Lucy Caldwell is a Northern Irish playwright and novelist. She was the winner of the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award.

Jane Harris is a British writer of fiction and screenplays. Her novels have been published in over 20 territories worldwide and translated into many different languages. Her most recent work is the novel Sugar Money which has been shortlisted for several literary prizes.

Mary Morrissy is an Irish novelist and short story writer. She writes on art, fiction, and history. Morrissy is an elected member of Aosdána, Ireland's academy of artists and writers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Petina Gappah</span> Zimbabwean writer, journalist and business lawyer (born 1971)

Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean lawyer and writer. She writes in English, though she also draws on Shona, her first language. In 2016, she was named African Literary Person of the Year by Brittle Paper. In 2017 she had a DAAD Artist-in-Residence fellowship in Berlin.

The Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award is an annual award for Irish authors of fiction, established in 1995. It was previously known as the Kerry Ingredients Book of the Year Award (1995–2000), the Kerry Ingredients Irish Fiction Award (2001–2002), and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award (2003-2011).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leone Ross</span> British writer (born 1969)

Leone Ross is a British novelist, short story writer, editor, journalist and academic, who is of Jamaican and Scottish ancestry.

Yewande Omotoso is a South African-based novelist, architect and designer, who was born in Barbados and grew up in Nigeria. She is the daughter of Nigerian writer Kole Omotoso, and the sister of filmmaker Akin Omotoso. She currently lives in Johannesburg. Her two published novels have earned her considerable attention, including winning the South African Literary Award for First-Time Published Author, being shortlisted for the South African Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the M-Net Literary Awards 2012, and the 2013 Etisalat Prize for Literature, and being longlisted for the 2017 Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sally Rooney</span> Irish author

Sally Rooney is an Irish author and screenwriter. She has published three novels: Conversations with Friends (2017), Normal People (2018), and Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021). Both Normal People and Conversations with Friends were adapted into television series by Hulu, RTÉ, Screen Ireland and the BBC, in 2020 and 2022, respectively. Rooney's work has garnered critical acclaim and commercial success, and she is regarded as one of the foremost millennial writers.

References

  1. "Deirdre Madden's One by One in the Darkness: Troubles novel resonates 25 years on". The Irish Times .
  2. "One by one in the darkness | Troubles Archive".
  3. "Deirdre Madden's One by One in the Darkness: Troubles novel resonates 25 years on". The Irish Times .
  4. Snyder, Travis (2017). "Deirdre Madden's One by One in the Darkness (1996): Impossible Reconciliation?". New Hibernia Review. 21: 143–159. doi:10.1353/nhr.2017.0009. S2CID   149173479.
  5. "One by One in the Darkness".