Inishbream

By (author): Theresa Kishkan

A wanderer arrives by chance on Inishbream, a rocky dot in the sea just off the west coast of Ireland. A lover of boats and a strong worker, she soon marries the young owner of her stone cottage. For a time, she does her woman’s work, fishes with her husband, and walks along the shore, imagining Saint Brendan and the invisible world so real to the islanders. Through the winter, she repays Inishbream storytellers with tales of coastal British Columbia, not so very different, after all, from their own.

In the spring, the islanders learn that their isolation will end: the government has promised them modern houses on the mainland. The wanderer cannot wait for the migration; she must leave Inishbream and go home alone. In the islanders’ soft dialect and the wanderer’s own tongue, Inishbream conjures relationships between the newcomer and her husband, between the island people, the sea, and the land, and between the coastal landscapes of reality and imagination. In the uneasy peace of partial acceptance, the foreigner grows, changes, and starts to envision her own place in the world.

Inishbream is also available in a hand-printed and hand-bound limited edition from Barbarian Press. That Inishbream was chosen for this exclusive private edition attests to the clarity of Theresa Kishkan’s storytelling and the beauty of her writing.

AUTHOR

Theresa Kishkan

Theresa Kishkan is an accomplished author of nine books of poetry and prose. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals such as Geist, BC Bookworld, Brick, The Canadian Forum, Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review and Quill and Quire. A mother of three children, she now makes her home on the Sechelt Peninsula with her husband, John Pass. Please visit Theresa online at theresakishkan.com


Reviews

A wanderer arrives by chance on Inishbream, a rocky dot in the sea just off the west coast of Ireland. A lover of boats and a strong worker, she soon marries Sean, the young owner of her stone cottage. For a time, she does her woman’s work, fishes with her husband, and walks along the shore, imagining Saint Brendan and the invisible world so real to the islanders. Through the winter, she repays Inishbream storytellers with tales of coastal British Columbia, not so very different, after all, from their own. Inishbream conjures relationships between the newcomer and her husband, between the island people, the sea, and the land, and between the coastal landscapes of reality and imagination. In the uneasy peace of partial acceptance, a young woman starts to envision her own place in the world.
Inishbream is a story imbued with the rhythms of speech and of the natural world, of dying and living, of light and change. It holds the same fundamental truths as a sung air, as the hanging notes of a tin whistle, of the resonance of pipes.”
Quill & Quire starred review

Awards

There are no awards found for this book.
Excerpts & Samples ×

A wanderer arrives by chance on Inishbream, a rocky dot in the sea just off the west coast of Ireland. A lover of boats and a strong worker, she soon marries the young owner of her stone cottage. For a time, she does her woman’s work, fishes with her husband, and walks along the shore, imagining Saint Brendan and the invisible world so real to the islanders. Through the winter, she repays Inishbream storytellers with tales of coastal British Columbia, not so very different, after all, from their own.

In the spring, the islanders learn that their isolation will end: the government has promised them modern houses on the mainland. The wanderer cannot wait for the migration; she must leave Inishbream and go home alone. In the islanders’ soft dialect and the wanderer’s own tongue, Inishbream conjures relationships between the newcomer and her husband, between the island people, the sea, and the land, and between the coastal landscapes of reality and imagination. In the uneasy peace of partial acceptance, the foreigner grows, changes, and starts to envision her own place in the world.

Inishbream is also available in a hand-printed and hand-bound limited edition from Barbarian Press. That Inishbream was chosen for this exclusive private edition attests to the clarity of Theresa Kishkan’s storytelling and the beauty of her writing.

Reader Reviews

Details

Dimensions:

110 Pages
7in * 5in * 0.36in
120gr

Published:

April 01, 2001

Publisher:

Goose Lane Editions

ISBN:

9780864922878

9780864927156 – EPUB

Book Subjects:

FICTION / Literary

Featured In:

All Books

Language:

eng

No author posts found.

Related Blog Posts

There are no posts with this book.