There Are Little Kingdoms

"Magnificent. This is show-stopping stuff." --Sunday Tribune (Ireland)

"Immensely entertaining . . . A brilliant example of short story writing at its best." --The Sunday Business Post (Ireland)

"Some of the most beautiful and lyrical writing ever composed by an Irish writer . . . There are truly great things here. Expect more." --Irish Examiner

"A collection of vibrant, original, and intelligent short stories, and a number of the tales contained in There Are Little Kingdoms deserve to be read and reread, and to outlast the strange years that made them." --The Irish Times

From the author of City of Bohane, a debut collection that "could easily have been titled ‘These Are Little Masterpieces'" (The Irish Times)

This award-winning story collection by Kevin Barry summons all the laughter, darkness, and intensity of contemporary Irish life. A pair of fast girls court trouble as they cool their heels on a slow night in a small town. Lonesome hill walkers take to the high reaches in pursuit of a saving embrace. A bewildered man steps off a country bus in search of his identity—and a stiff drink. These stories, filled with a grand sense of life's absurdity, form a remarkably sure-footed collection that reads like a modern-day Dubliners. The winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and a 2007 book of the year in The Irish Times, the Sunday Tribune, and Metro, There Are Little Kingdoms marks the stunning entrance of a writer who burst onto the literary scene fully formed.