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Haven

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Room

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Haven

By: Emma Donoghue
Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
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About this listen

A story of survival set in 600 AD Ireland; a parable of patriarchy, destruction and religion at sea, by Emma Donoghue, the bestselling author of Room.

'Everything a novel should be: compassionate, unpredictable, and questioning. Haven is Donoghue at her strange, unsettling best.' - Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet

Shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award

In seventh-century Ireland, a priest has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks with him, he travels down the Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a new place of worship. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. But in such a place, far from all other humanity, what will survival mean?

‘Haven is a beautiful, bold blaze of a book’ – Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

‘Beautiful and timely’ - Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater

‘Sinister, heart-wrenching and beautifully written’ – The Times

‘Combines pressure-cooker intensity and radical isolation, to stunning effect’ – Margaret Atwood via Twitter

‘Book of the Year’ pick in The Irish Times, The Guardian, The Irish Post, RTÉ and The Times.

 Christian Fiction Classics & Allegories Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological

Critic Reviews

A remarkably engrossing tale
This book kept me up half the night - I was unable to put it down, and read it in one spellbound gulp. It is everything a novel should be: compassionate, unpredictable, and questioning. Haven is Donoghue at her strange, unsettling best. (Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet)
Brooding, dreamlike . . . it’s in descriptions of the physical world that Donoghue’s prose soars . . . Likewise, among themes that include isolation and devotion, its ecological warnings are its most resonant.
Quietly beautiful . . . And its subject, of course, is a universal one: we’re all stuck on this rock, trying to keep hold of simple moral truths while quietly losing our minds. As poor young Trian puts it, in one of his darkest moments: “Even this unbearable life is still sweet."
Donoghue excels in creating not just a world but a worldview that is far removed from our own . . . this is a bold, thoughtful novel.
A beautiful and timely novel about isolation, passion and the conflict between obedience and self-preservation. The island setting and the characters stayed with me long after I finished reading (Sarah Moss, author of Ghostwall and Summerwater)
Donoghue wrings unlikely psychodrama from such everyday chores of monastic life as copying a manuscript or building a drystone wall. But if that doesn’t grab you, rest assured that the devastating denouement amply repays the reader’s patience — and has a thing or two to say about modern-day moral panics, too
I am already an admirer of Emma Donoghue's writing and this novel had me in its grasp from the beginning. It was so bleak and brutal about the harshness and fanaticism of the monastic life; I was absolutely convinced by her depiction of scratching a life on the bare island and the power play between the trinity of monks, and their motivations and beliefs. I read it in a couple of sittings with a growing sense of foreboding and desperation to know their fates. A powerful story, brilliantly imagined.
Haven creates an eerie, meditative atmosphere that should resonate with anyone willing to think deeply about the blessings and costs of devoting one’s life to a transcendent cause.
In 7th C, Ireland, three men set sail to a bird-thick island to find God. EmmaDonoghue combines pressure-cooker intensity + radical isolation, to stunning effect. What is Divine Grace? Purity of soul? Virtue? Not what they think. (Margaret Atwood via Twitter)
Sinister, heart-wrenching and beautifully written.
A grim and grisly tale of monastic privation and isolation in seventh-century Ireland . . . [Donoghue] deftly captures the elemental nature of the relationship between her protagonists and the natural world; how it’s both their benefactor and their tormentor, a source of life, but also of death. (Lucy Scholes)
All stars
Most relevant
Very well written and exceptional reading but not much plot. Lots of praying and pointless sacrifice.

Blind faith

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I understand that the history of this kind of place is important, but it was a very hard slog to get through the tedium of foolish men. I had hoped for something a bit more enlightening.

Hard slog for so little

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