The Coast Road

Acquired in a hugely competitive five-way auction, The Coast Road drums up the social drama and tension of Big Little Lies in a tale of small town Ireland in 1994 - the year before divorce was made legal

Alan Murrin is an Irish fiction writer based in Berlin. In 2021 he was the winner of the Bournemouth Writing Prize for his short story "The Wake", which went on to be shortlisted for short story of the year at the Irish Book Awards. He is the recipient of an Irish Arts Council Agility Award and an Arts Council Literature Bursary. He is a graduate of the prose fiction masters at the University of East Anglia. His work was featured as part of the New Irish Writing series in the Irish Independent. His work has been short-listed for the Irish Arts and Writers Festival short story prize, the New Irish Writing in Germany Prize, and he was long-listed for the 2021 University of Essex International short story prize. He writes for the Irish Times, Times Literary Supplement and Spectator. His writing on art and photography has appeared in Art Review and The White Review.

Alan Murrin writes with the calm, poetic fluency of the best of Irish writers. The Coast Road is set in Donegal the year before divorce became legal in Ireland, and the many themes are equally - sadly - as relevant now. Women's autonomy is beautifully scrutinised in a shifting tempo that moves between rage, forgiveness and hope. It's a stonkingly good novel. Just read it
It will no doubt be a bestseller
This beautifully atmospheric novel is a dark, unsettling warning about how easily narrow attitudes can turn into dangerous ones. An eerie, urgent debut from an exciting new voice