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Northern Ireland is a land haunted by ancient legends as well as by the more recent memory of the Troubles. It is the setting for Quickly, While They Still Have Horses, Jan Carson’s collection of sixteen sparkling short stories, somewhere between sociological observation and magical realism.
An indignant swimmer discovers intruders on ‘her’ usually deserted beach; a rumour of a miraculous cure causes chaos in a public swimming pool; a blind man takes driving lessons; a father finally accepts that his two unruly children aren’t going to get off the slide they got on … Almost anything can happen in a story by Jan Carson. Including the appearance of a ghost. In one story, a young girl strikes up a conversation with a Catholic ghost – who happens to be a heavy smoker – whose presence she alone perceives in the back seat of the car her grandfather has just bought …
remote corners of Ireland
Jan Carson had already won over audiences with her novels The Fire Starters and The Raptures. Black humour, irreverence, irony, cruelty and tenderness: Jan Carson’s artistry now explodes in these short stories, a literary genre held in high esteem in Britain and Ireland. The efficiency of the English language is interwoven with the surprises of the supernatural and magical realism. And Jan Carson’s sense of observation and ironic ferocity spare no one in these remote corners of Northern Ireland.
A word of warning: Jan Carson is a voracious reader. Hearing her talk about the books she loved to Anouk Delcourt may well make you rush straight to the nearest bookshop …
The Sunday Times, London.
about the author
Jan Carson lives in Belfast, where she has been running art workshops and publishing novels and short stories for the past ten years. The Fire Starters, her first novel to be published in French, was a finalist for the Femina and Médicis étrangers prizes. The Raptures, inspired by her childhood in a Protestant family in Northern Ireland, also drew a lot of attention. In September 2024 she published Quickly, While They Still Have Horses.
about the moderator
Anouk Delcourt is a bookseller at Point Virgule in Namur.
don’t forget about summer hour. on sunday 30th of march, hours will change from 2:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m.
Organisation: Passa Porta
picture: Jan Carson © Johnny Ryder
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