The Art of Reading Book Club with Colm Tóibín | Episode 24: 'Soldier Sailor' by Claire Kilroy

The Arts Council Podcast

The January Art of Reading book club features Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín in conversation with writer Claire Kilroy about her novel ‘Soldier Sailor’ “Claire Kilroy’s first novel in more than a decade deals with the early days and nights of motherhood. ‘Soldier Sailor is a resonant and important book,’ Sarah Gilmartin has written in The Irish Times, ‘vital in all senses of the word, a flare sent up from the shores of early motherhood, a lesson in surviving the wilderness.’” — Colm Tóibín Claire Kilroy is the author of five novels, All Summer (Faber, 2003), Tenderwire (Faber, 2006), All Names Have Been Changed (Faber, 2009), and The Devil I Know (Faber, 2012). In 2023, after an eleven year silence, her fifth novel, Soldier Sailor, about the early years of motherhood, was published to universal acclaim. It was named a Best Book by The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, The Irish Independent and The Independent. Kilroy won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2004 and has been shortlisted many times for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and the Irish Book Awards. She studied at Trinity College and lives in Dublin. Learn more about the Art of Reading Book Club and the Laureate for Irish Fiction programme: https://www.artscouncil.ie/Arts-in-Ireland/Literature/Laureate-for-Irish-Fiction/The-Art-of-Reading-Book-Club/