Carys Davies on Clear
Wednesday 8th May
Pilrig St. Paul's Church, 1B Pilrig St, Edinburgh EH6 5AH
7pm
7.30pm
Please note, this event is now taking place at Pilrig St. Paul's Church.
The Scotsman called it 'an astonishing novel' and the Sunday Times named it a Best Book of 2024. We're so excited to be joined by Carys Davies to talk all about her new novel Clear, a wondrous tale of bonds forged when two men are pitted against each other on a remote island during the Highland Clearances, from the prize-winning author of West.
Clear
1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs.
The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep. Unaware of the stranger's intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them. Meanwhile on the mainland, John's wife Mary anxiously awaits news of his mission. Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland, Davies's intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us.
About Carys Davies
Carys Davies is the author of a novel, West, and two collections of short stories, Some New Ambush and The Redemption of Galen Pike, which won the 2015 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and the 2015 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She is also the recipient of the Royal Society of Literature's V.S. Pritchett Prize, the Society of Authors' Olive Cook Short Story Award, a Northern Writers’ Award, and a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library.