Standout Contemporary Irish Authors You Should Give a Listen

Tana French is an award-winning mystery author from Dublin. Though most of her novels are part of the Dublin Murder Squad series, they are loosely connected and can be listened to in any order. If you'd prefer a standalone novel, try French's latest, The Witch Elm. Toby seems to have it all together, but after burglars beat him to within an inch of his life, everything changes. Looking for a chance to slow down and recover, Toby moves to a remote estate to take care of his dying uncle. When a skull turns up in a witch elm tree on the property, Toby finds himself in the middle of a mystery very much unlike the quiet life he'd expected to find in the country. Paul Nugent's narration brings the novel's complicated main character to life.

Emma Donoghue is a Dublin-born author best known for her bestselling novel Room, and she also wrote the screenplay for the 2015 movie adaptation that won Brie Larson the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her 2016 novel The Wonder, narrated by Tara Egan Langley, is well worth a listen as well. When an English nurse comes to a small Irish village to witness what she is told is a miracle, she soon finds herself trying to save a child's life. Donoghue also wrote the screenplay for the Netflix film adaptation starring Florence Pugh.

Sally Rooney is a preternaturally talented Irish author who writes about the complications of love, friendships, and young adulthood in a way that's utterly engrossing. Winner of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award in 2017, she has since attracted international acclaim. All three of her novels—Conversations with Friends, Normal People, and Beautiful World, Where Are You—are narrated dynamically by Aoife McMahon. Normal People, which follows two characters from the same small Irish town who keep falling back into each other's lives, was longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize and adapted into a limited series streaming on Hulu.

John Boyne is the winner of four Irish Book Awards, including Author of the Year, and a New York Times bestselling author. He has written six books for children, two novellas, and one collection of short stories in addition to his 14 novels for adults. His latest, A Ladder to the Sky tells the story of Maurice Swift, a man who has little in the way of talent but will nevertheless stop at nothing to achieve his ambitions. If you love a good ensemble narration, this audiobook features four amazingly talented narrators: Richard E. Grant, Richard Cordery, Nina Sosanya, and Laurence Kennedy.

Colum McCann is a critically acclaimed author of literary fiction. Along with winning a National Book Award and a Pushcart Prize, he was the inaugural winner of the Ireland Fund of Monaco Literary Award in Memory of Princess Grace. To date, he has written six novels and three short story collections, so he has plenty of works to choose from. If you want to give one a listen, try Let the Great World Spin, a fictionalized account of Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk across the Twin Towers from the perspective of several different people living in Manhattan. This audiobook also features an amazing cast of narrators: Richard Poe, Gerard Doyle, Carol Monda, Johanna Parker, and Ramon De Ocampo.

Born in Wexford, Ireland, John Banville has enjoyed a long and successful career as a writer of short stories, screenplays, anthologies, and, under a pseudonym, mystery series. However, he is best known and highly acclaimed for his 13 standalone novels, including the Man Booker Prize-winning The Sea, the poignant story of a middle-aged widower. In his 2017 novel Mrs. Osmond, Banville boldly takes Henry James's classic The Portrait of a Lady and imagines what happens to the character Isabel Archer after the events of the novel. Amy Finnegan narrates.

Eimear McBride might live in London now, but she was born in Ireland; her debut novel, A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, is not one to be missed. In it, McBride tells the heartbreaking story of a girl who is struggling through her adolescence while dealing with sexual abuse and a brother who is suffering from a brain tumor. Narrated by the author, the audio version of the book hits the perfect level of melancholy that evokes empathy rather than pity. McBride also voices her two successive novels, The Lesser Bohemians and Strange Hotel, as well as her nonfiction debut, Something Out of Place.

A beloved, bestselling author of more than 20 novels, Maeve Binchy was born in County Dublin and received Lifetime Achievement Awards at both the Irish and British Book Awards before her death in 2012. Several of her novels have been adapted for the screen, including Tara Road, which was an Oprah's Book Club selection. For the best listening experience, check out her posthumously published novel A Week in Winter, narrated by Rosalyn Landor. When Chicky Starr decides to renovate an old mansion overlooking the ocean and turn it into a bed and breakfast, everyone thinks she's batty. But when she opens the doors to visitors, everyone who stays is touched by the place, in one way or another. Landor's narration captures the mood of the novel to a T, hitting the notes of humor and warmheartedness that are Binchy's signature.

Colm Tóibín is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and poet. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, his short novel The Testament of Mary was hailed by The New York Times as an ideal audiobook. (Meryl Streep's narration may be a factor!) For an excellent ensemble narration, listen to Tóibín's novel House of Names, which features the narrators Juliet Stevenson, Charlie Anson, and Pippa Nixon. The story is a retelling of the classic Greek mythological tale of Clytemnestra.

Marian Keyes may have gone to school for accounting, but her talents truly lie in her ability to write fun mysteries and thrillers as well as works of contemporary fiction revolving around relatable women. Aoife McMahon appears on this list for a second time (see Sally Rooney); she narrates Keyes's The Woman Who Stole My Life. In this novel, a beautician named Stella is struck by a serious illness that leaves her hospitalized for months. When she recovers, she discovers that her life has completely changed.

Kevin Barry is a Limerick-born author of three collections of short stories and three novels. Like his hometown's namesake, Barry has a singular voice and a way with words that places listeners directly in his scenes. His debut novel, City of Bohane won the International Dublin Literary Award, and his encore, Beatlebone, won the Goldsmiths Prize for fiction that defies conventions. Longlisted for the Booker Prize, Barry’s 2019 novel Night Boat to Tangier is the latest of his efforts. This story follows the twilight years of two aging criminals as they reflect on their long and pain-filled careers. Narrating his own work, Barry's voice brings humanity and compassion to his often hateable characters.

Few debut novels have as much heart as Sara Baume’s Spill Simmer Falter Wither. With her signature style of poetic imagery undercut by subtle humor, it is no wonder that this Trinity College graduate’s first novel claimed the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2015 and, thanks to the brilliant narration of John Keating, an Earphones Award. Praised by listeners as Extraordinary. Heartrending. Matchless. and Simply Beautiful, this novel centers around a damaged man’s relationship with his dog over the course of four seasons—a simple setup leaves plenty of room for powerful emotions and compelling character progression.

Sebastian Barry is a Dublin native and a certified mainstay of Irish literature. His status as a Laureate for Irish Fiction and endless awards paint a picture of an author who has had his finger on the pulse of Irish storytelling for a long time. The Secret Scripture is a unique novel even for Barry, centering around Roseanne McNulty, the former celebrated beauty of County Sligo. The novel introduces us to Roseanne as a patient at Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital as her 100th birthday draws near. As she reflects on her life to the hospital staff, it soon becomes clear that Roseanne's past may be quite different from what she recalls. Wanda McCaddon lends her Irish brogue to a story listeners describe as haunting, poignant, and mesmerizing.