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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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About this listen

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 Literary History & Criticism Nonfiction Haunted
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What a delight to read! The language is so poetic and the interwoven stories of women quite magical. I love the strength of women that it portrays. I’ve never heard such an accurate portrayal of the emotions and practicalities of raising young children. Yet this too was done so lyrically. The narration was fabulous. I will be reading this one again.

Just beautiful

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