Kevin Barry | The Heart in Winter
Sun 27 Apr 2025 | 6:00pm - 7:00pm



Acclaimed author Kevin Barry returns with The Heart in Winter, his first novel since the Booker-longlisted Night Boat to Tangier. Set in 1891 Butte, Montana, a booming town built on copper and fuelled by vice, whiskey, and hard-living Irish immigrants, this is a dazzling tale of love, betrayal, and pursuit in the American West.
At its heart is Tom Rourke, a young poet and ballad maker—but also a drinker and a degenerate. Just as his life seems destined for ruin, he meets Polly Gillespie, the newly arrived wife of the devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington. A lightning-strike romance ignites between them, and soon they flee westward on a stolen horse, carving out a brief, untamed idyll in the badlands of Montana and Idaho. But their escape is short-lived: a posse of deranged Cornish gunmen is closing in fast.
Join us as Kevin Barry brings his trademark lyricism, dark humour, and wild storytelling to this epic tale of doomed love, frontier violence, and the dream of freedom.
In conversation with Tom Gatti
Venue: Old Divinity School
Duration: 1 hour
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Author Biography
Kevin Barry is the author of four novels and three story collections. His awards include the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award and the Lannan Foundation Literary Award. His stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta and elsewhere. His novel, Night Boat to Tangier, was an Irish number one bestseller, was longlisted for the Booker Prize and named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by the New York Times. He also works as a playwright and screenwriter, and he lives in County Sligo, Ireland
Chair Biography