Foster

From the author of the Booker-shortlisted Small Things Like These, a heartbreaking, haunting story of childhood, loss and love by one of Ireland's most acclaimed writers.
AN IRISH TIMES TOP 100 BEST IRISH BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURYWINNER OF THE DAVY BYRNES IRISH WRITING AWARD
'A real jewel.' Irish Independent'A small miracle.' Sunday Times'A thing of finely honed beauty.' Guardian'As good as Chekhov.' David Mitchell
It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A girl is sent to live with foster parents on a farm, not knowing when she will return home. In the strangers' house, she finds a warmth and affection she has not known before and slowly begins to blossom in their care. But in a house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers how fragile her idyll is.
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Readers love Foster:
----- 'To say this story is exceptional doesn't adequately describe it. If there were 10 stars to award this would deserve every one. Claire Keegan has a wonderful talent at storytelling.'
----- 'Foster is beautifully and confidently written, the prose is evocative, poignant and moving, with wonderfully atmospheric imagery ... Claire Keegan is an incredible storyteller.'
----- 'I've read books four times the length that didn't have near as much depth. There are so many layers to the writing and this is close to perfection.'
----- 'This is another literary diamond packed full of emotional charge, depth, poignancy and wonder. This novella is a thing of pure beauty and I urge you to read it!'
----- 'I rarely cry when reading a book but I wept ... Read it everyone. It will stay with you forever.'

Claire Keegan's works of fiction are critically acclaimed international bestsellers - and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Antarctica won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Walk the Blue Fields won the Edge Hill Prize for the finest collection of stories published in the British Isles. Foster won the Davy Byrnes Award - the world's richest prize for a short story. Small Things Like These, a New York Times Best Book of the 21st Century, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Rathbones Folio Prize and won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award. So Late in the Day was published in the New Yorker and shortlisted for the British Book Awards. Keegan was awarded Woman of the Year for Literature in Ireland in 2022, Author of the Year 2023, the Seamus Heaney Award for Arts and Letters 2024 and most recently the Siegfried Lenz Prize.