« Ce genre de petites choses » de Claire Keegan élu « Meilleur livre irlandais du XXIe siècle » par les lecteurs l’« Irish Times »

Irish Times readers pick Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These as the best Irish book of the 21st century

The Irish Times assembled a panel of 60 experts – authors, critics, academics, festival curators, booksellers and journalists – to decide the best Irish novels and short story collections of the years 2000-2025. The result was a ranked list of 100 works of fiction, with Milkman by Anna Burns (2018) decided as the best Irish book of the 21st century.

We then asked readers to have their say on what they consider to be the best books from the top 25 – the result of which was quite different from our experts’ ranking.

With almost 2,000 votes cast, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (2021) was chosen by readers as the best book. While the majority of voters were Irish, people from 26 other countries are also represented within the 1,993 votes.

Although the expert panel favoured Milkman, Keegan’s haunting story of institutional abuse by the Catholic Church was not far behind in fourth place. Keegan was a firm favourite among the groups, with her novella Foster (2010) also in the top five of each list.

Experts and readers agreed on only two rankings; John McGahern’s That They May Face The Rising Sun (2002) in second place and The Green Road by Anne Enright (2015) at number 21.

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