An ageing nun is tracked to ground by her sister; a garrulous beautician must lay out the corpse of a loved one. These are eloquent tales of exile and displacement, of characters always in search of a way back home or of a way to leave it. Mischievous, assured and versatile, Colum McCann's collection of short stories marks him out as one of our best contemporary writers.

About the Author
Colum McCann was born in Dublin in 1965. His fiction has won numerous international awards including the Rooney Prize, the Ireland Fund of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Award, a Pushcart Prize, and Esquire magazine's Writer of the Year award in 2003. In 2005 he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Film. He was recently inducted into the Hennessy Hall of Fame in Dublin. His work has been published in twenty-six languages. He has travelled widely and is based in New York, where he lives with his wife and children