A Ghost in the Throat

De: Doireann Ní Ghríofa

Narrado por: Siobhán McSweeney

When we first met, I was a child, and she had been dead for centuries.

On discovering her murdered husband's body, an 18th-century Irish noblewoman drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary lament. Eibhlin Dubh Ni Chonaill's poem travels through the centuries, finding its way to a new mother who has narrowly avoided her own fatal tragedy. When she realizes that the literature dedicated to the poem reduces Eibhlin Dubh's life to flimsy sketches, she wants more: the details of the poet's girlhood and old age; her unique rages, joys, sorrows, and desires; the shape of her days and site of her final place of rest. What follows is an adventure in which Doireann Ni Ghriofa sets out to discover Eibhlin Dubh's erased life - and in doing so, discovers her own.

Moving fluidly between past and present, quest and elegy, poetry and those who make it, A Ghost in the Throat is a shape-shifting book: a record of literary obsession; a narrative about the erasure of a people, of a language, of women; a meditation on motherhood and on translation; and an unforgettable story about finding your voice by freeing another's.

©2020 Doireann Ní Ghríofa (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

legacy and lineage

A stunning portrait of motherhood and devotion.
This is a must read for any parent!

Stunning

Brilliant and poetic, both in the language choices and overall structure. Absolutely riveting. Wonderful performance too.

Wow!

2nd read - listening was beautiful! It is a treat to hear Irish - and Siobhan McSweeney’s voice is gorgeous.

Such unexpected loveliness

What a delight… a meditation on motherhood, with lyric and history and genealogy and bees… a woman’s journey to discover herself through the erasure of women in history. Just glorious.
And the narration - I will listen again and again for that alone.

absolutely stunning

what a sonic masterpiece. pleasing. easing neatly between sheets of need. seize me,seize me. free.