The author of Wild Houses, longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024, talks about his book’s small-town Irish setting, and the author who inspired him to write about the world he knew
Colin Barrett
Colin Barrett grew up in County Mayo, Ireland, and is a short story writer and novelist
His stories have been published in the Stinging Fly, Granta, Harper’s and the New Yorker. His first book, the short story collection Young Skins, won the Guardian First Book Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. One of the stories in the book, Calm with Horses, was adapted into an award-winning 2019 film of the same name, starring Barry Keoghan and Cosmo Jarvis. Barrett’s second short story collection, Homesickness, made the New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year and was a Book of the Year in Oprah Daily and the Irish Times.
His debut novel Wild Houses was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024.
A darkly comic account of frustration and misadventure in a small Irish town. A slow-burn study of character and fate that’s also an edge-of-your-seat thriller
The 2024 judges on Wild Houses
All nominated books
A story of two outsiders striving to find themselves as their worlds collapse in chaos and violence, Wild Houses is the first novel from award-winning writer Colin Barrett
Features
- Book recommendations
The 2024 longlistees on the book that inspired them to become a writer
- Book extract