Paul Murray

Paul Murray (1975, Dublin) worked for many years as a bookseller after his studies. He is the author of An Evening of Long Goodbyes, Skippy Dies, and The Mark and the Void. His novels have been universally praised and have won numerous awards. He lives with his family in Dublin. At BorderKitchen, he will talk about his latest novel The Bee Sting.

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie Barnes' lucrative car business is no longer thriving. Dickie looks away by starting to build a bunker in the woods. His wife Imelda finds the advances of Big Mike, a wealthy cattle farmer, increasingly attractive. Teenager Cass, who has always been the best in her class, responds to the decline by deciding to get drunk every day until she graduates, while thirteen-year-old PJ makes a plan to run away from home. When life and the world fall apart, the big questions arise: when and where was the seed of the decline sown? The day Dickie stood trembling before his father at the age of ten and learned how to become a real man? The car accident twelve months before Cass's birth? Or the devastating bee sting that ruined Imelda's wedding day? The Bee Sting is a grand novel about the decay, fears, lies, and love life of a family in the Irish countryside. It is no wonder that The Bee Sting was one of the six nominees for the prestigious Booker Prize last year.

Paul Murray will sign books after the interview. His books (Eng/Dutch) will be for sale at the event.