Dublin City Council is pleased to announce that Tatty by Christine Dwyer Hickey is the Dublin One City One Book choice for 2020, following a very successful campaign with The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O’Brien in April 2019.
Dublin One City One Book aims to encourage everyone in Dublin to read a designated book connected with the capital city during the month of April every year. This annual project is a Dublin City Council initiative, led by Dublin City Libraries and encourages reading for pleasure through a myriad of free public events throughout the month, held in libraries, galleries, theatres and museums. Tatty will be available to borrow from all public libraries nationwide.
A full programme of events will be announced in March 2020.
Author Christine Dwyer Hickey said: “I’m absolutely delighted. Tatty is a novel that is connected to the city of Dublin in so many ways – it’s an honour to have it chosen as Dublin One City One Book for 2020.”
Dublin City Librarian, Mairead Owens, added: “Tatty is a book about a Dublin childhood, but it is also utterly universal in its themes and will appeal to anyone in our city who picks it up during our festival month next April. We work hard to choose the right book every year and we’ve struck gold with this exquisite story, so expertly woven by Christine Dwyer Hickey, one of Dublin’s finest authors.”
Lord Mayor of Dublin, Paul McAuliffe said : “I look forward to seeing copies of Tatty in all our city libraries and book shop windows next April and I hope the number of people engaging with Dublin One City One Book continues to grow. There’s no excuse with so many free events and opportunities to pick up the book. This is the ultimate book club and the entire city is welcome to join. Let’s get reading, Dublin! ”
The Book
Tatty is the story of a Dublin family as told through the eyes of one of its children over a ten year period. During this time we see the destruction brought about by alcoholism as one little girl tries to come to terms with her parents’ drinking.
This is the story of a disturbed childhood, yet it is also filled with humour and love. Chapter by chapter, the child’s voice matures and her perception becomes more honed; we are left with a stunning portrait of a disintegrating family and the child lost within it.
The Author
Christine Dwyer Hickey is a novelist, playwright and short story writer. She has published eight novels, one collection of short stories and a full-length play.
Tatty was published by New Island Books (2004) and by Vintage UK (2005). It was shortlisted for Irish Novel of The Year 2005, listed as one of the 50 Irish Novels of the Decade at the Irish Book Awards 2010 and was nominated for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s Fiction Prize).
Her other Dublin works include the Dublin Trilogy, the story of a Dublin family from 1918-1960 (New Island 2006); the short story collection Parkgate Street and other Dublin Stories
(New Island 2013) and The Cold Eye of Heaven (Atlantic UK 2011) which won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2012 and was nominated for the IMPAC Award 2013 (now the International Dublin Literary Award).
Last Train from Liguria (Atlantic UK 2009) set in Italy during Mussolini’s Fascist regime was nominated for the Prix L’Européen de Littérature .
Her latest novel The Narrow Land (Atlantic UK 2019) is set on Cape Cod in 1950 and examines the turbulent marriage of American artists Edward and Jo Hopper.
Christine’s stories have been published in anthologies and magazines worldwide and have won several awards the most recent of which was at for her story Back to Bones at the Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year Award 2017.
Her play Snow Angels premiered at the Project Arts Theatre in 2014.
Her work has been widely translated into European and Arabic languages and she is an elected member of Aosdána, the Irish academy of arts.
Dublin One City One Book
Previous books featured are; At Swim Two Birds by Flann O’ Brien (2006), A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry (2007), Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (2008), Dracula by Bram Stoker (2009), The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde (2010), Ghost Light by Joseph O’Connor (2011), Dubliners by James Joyce (2012), Strumpet City by James Plunkett (2013), If Ever You Go: a map of Dublin in poetry and song edited by Pat Boran and Gerard Smyth (2014) and The Barrytown Trilogy by Roddy Doyle (2015); Fallen by Lia Mills (2016); Echoland by Joe Joyce (2017); The Long Gaze Back, An Anthology of Irish Women Writers edited by Sinéad Gleeson (2018); and The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O’Brien (2019).