A small Irish island lives its own life, and it doesn't care that somewhere out there there is Civilization and Progress, while a civil war is raging next door. The island has its share of joys and problems. But one day, two strangers appear on the island: an English artist and a French linguist. Few can bear such proximity without moral loss, and especially not the inhabitants of a small island. Moreover, almost the only local teenager is caught up in the thick of the slow but sure slide towards the denouement: in a very slow local life, he must, in record time, go through all those stages of development that, for some reason, took world culture and civilization many, many centuries to achieve.

Booker Prize Longlist (2022)