The Blackwater Lightship
Synopsis
Set in modern day Ireland, The Blackwater Lightship tells the tale of three women, Dora Devereaux, her daughter Lily and grand-daughter Helen. They arrive at an uneasy peace with each other after years of strife. Declan, Helen’s adored brother, is dying. Brought together in the grand-mother’s crumbling old house with two of Declan’s friends, the characters are forced to listen to each other’s stories, funny, shocking, sad and come to an acceptance of each other across generational boundaries.
Author Biography
Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford in 1955 and educated at University College Dublin. He is the author of five novels: The South, (1990) winner of The Irish Times Literature Prize in 1991; The Heather Blazing, winner of the Encore Award for the best second novel in 1992; The Story of the Night (1997); The Blackwater Lightship (1999), shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize; and The Master (2004), shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and winner of the Los Angeles Times Novel of the Year and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger in France. Tóibín’s books have been translated into twenty-five languages.
