When Drew Linden’s new job brings him back to his native Belfast, he is determined to remain distant from everything that once tied him there, including his friends and family.But as three generations of family history unfold, it becomes clear that the past Drew has been running from is the very thing he needs to face. And that his sense of self is rooted forever in the troubled city of his birth.‘told with grace, with warmth and ineffable lightness by a writer in full love...

Saturday, 28 January 1967. It is a day like any other for eighteen-year-old Danny, pulling pints behind the bar of the International Hotel in Belfast, watching the comings and goings of the eccentric clientele.But ordinary days like this are almost over. The hotel has already been witness to the city’s dark tendencies – Danny’s job was only secured after another barman was shot. And with the inaugural meeting of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association the following day, Belfa...

It is the summer of 1969 and ten-year-old Mal is finding it difficult to settle into his new home, a housing estate on the outskirts of Belfast. He befriends a brash and rebellious teenager, Francy, who revels in his own status as an outsider and has set up camp in the local dump.But this is no ordinary summer – the civil rights marches are beginning, and the simmering sectarian tensions of the Larkview estate are set to erupt, hastening Mal’s painful, shocking loss of innocence.

Acclaimed Belfast novelist Glenn Patterson's classic novel of a day in the life in that city: a funny, brilliantly observed, bittersweet snapshot of a moment in 1967 just before everything changed."If I had known history was to be written that Sunday in the International Hotel I might have made an effort to get out of bed before teatime."So begins The International. Danny Hamilton takes us back over three troubled decades to one wonderfully ordinary Saturda...

Breakfast in a hotel, a stroll through town then it’s off to a meting with clients, followed by dinner and bed … what could be more routine in the life of a travelling businessman?But this is Hiroshima, no ordinary city. And for this Belfast businessman, the past is not quite so innocent as the product that he is selling. When he meets Ike, a fellow traveller from Belfast who just happens to be in Japan for a conference on ‘writing and conflict’, the narrator gradually finds that t...

A pair of novellas, set over two pivotal summers in the lives of two young men from Belfast, recall the constraints of the place where they were born and the times in which they are living.Summer on the RoadIt's 1980 and in the last summer before his A levels Mark lands a job he didn't even know he had applied for, sweeping streets for Belfast City Council. Called 'binman' by his schoolfriends, 'snooty' by his workmates, he can't i...

Here's Me Here: Further Reflections of a Lapsed Protestant features a wide and thought-provoking selection of Glenn Patterson's writings. With his trademark wit and intelligence, Patterson offers his wry take on life on this planet – from Northern Ireland to Berlin, from Warsaw to Dublin and back again to Belfast. Boldly written with fresh perspectives, Here's Me Here is packed with charm and honesty, humour and cutting insight.

It was one of the most bizarre episodes in the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland: the construction, during the war's most savage phase, of a factory in West Belfast to make a luxury sports car with gull-wing doors. Huge subsidies were provided by the British government. The first car rolled off the line during the appalling hunger strikes of 1981.The prime mover and central character of this intelligent, witty and moving novel was John DeLorean, brilliant engineer, charis...

First of September 1974. Craig Robinson is starting secondary school. Instinct tells him he needs to keep his head down. The last thing he needs, therefore, is someone carrying the name St John Nimmo to be sent to sit beside him, but that is what he gets.Across town Maxine Neill is starting her own new school, convinced that she shouldn't be there at all. She should be where Craig and St John are. Not that she has met either of them yet. Though meet them she will, and more....

'Funny, wise, entertaining and illuminating, this book is one of the best things to come out of the Brexit saga' FINTAN O'TOOLE.'Read this absorbing book to understand why, since 2016, we have been playing with fire. There is no longer any excuse for ignorance' MISHA GLENNY.Northern Ireland's frontier with the South has been an invisible line since the peace agreement of 1998. Now the battle over the UK's decision to leave the EU risks turning it into a hard...

A view of the south of Ireland – political, social, geographical – through the eyes of a liberal northern protestant being asked to rejoin it.'A pleasure to read... Incisively mixing memoir, reportage and analysis' Daily Mail'Discursive, humane and meticulously attentive to verbal nuances that can spell a world of meaning' Irish Examiner'Patterson's travels provide humorous asides, telling insights and sobering pess...

The true story of one of the biggest bank heists in Irish and British history – and the questions that remain.On a Sunday evening in December 2004, two young men were at home with their families. Both worked for the Northern Bank's cash centre in Belfast. They heard knocks on their front doors. Within a few minutes, masked men invaded their homes, overpowered their loved ones and disabled their electronic devices. It was made clear to the two bank officials that th...