The Dancers Dancing - Tapa blanda

'Ni Dhuibhne has a great way of mixing and merging the realistic with something otherworldly, like crossing an Alice Munro or an Anne Tyler with an Angela Carter or a Jeanette Winterson.' Books Ireland 'With a delicate touch not unlike Arundhati Roy's in The God of Small Things, Ni Dhuibhne sneaks under the ill-fitting skin of her metamorphosing Derry and Dublin cast. Their stories unravel in shifting voices with all the wisdom and perspective of an omniscient narrator.' Sunday Business Post 'Ni Dhuibhne's writing is marvellous, building layers of impression until a complex, vital and true-false picture of liberation is revealed.' Irish Times 'Her observations are lemon-fresh, her writing beautiful, witty and wry.' Sunday Express 'The author portrays the wild beauty of north Donegal, the doubt and confusion of girls just beginning to discover their sexuality, with a lyrical use of language that perfectly catches the mood of both time and place. The book is a joy to read and sustains the air of wonder, of unsolved mystery to the final chapter.' Irish Immigrant Review

It is 1972: a group of teenagers are spending a month in a Donegal Gaeltacht, learning Irish language and culture from their teachers and the local community. Liberated for the first time from the restricting reins of parental control, they respond to the untamed landscape of river, hill and sea, finding in it unnerving echoes of their own submerged - and now emerging - wildnesses. In this richly complex novel, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, one of Ireland's foremost contemporary novelists, uses the experiences and emotions of girls on the cusp of womanhood to explore dangerous territories of sex, politics, class and Irishness. This is a new, updated edition that includes an exclusive Blackstaff 'Bookends' section, with a review, author interview and much, much more ...