MICHAEL MCLAVERTY, one of Ireland's most distinguished short story writers, painted with acute precision and intensity the northern landscape of his homeland - lonely hill farms, rough island terrain and the tight backstreets of Belfast. Focusing on moments of passion, wonder or bitter disenchantment in lives that are a continuous struggle towards the light, these stories, in the compassion of the tone and the spare purity of the language, are nothing short of masterly. Illustrated with specially commissioned woodcuts by Barbara Childs, and including an introduction by Seamus Heaney and a foreword by Sophia Hillan, this handsome hardback edition is a fitting celebration of a writer who has been compared to both Joyce and Chekhov.