Books by Donal Ryan
Heart, Be at Peace
by Donal Ryan
🏆 Winner of the 2025 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Twenty-one voices from a small town in Ireland come together to paint a picture of a community in all its complexity: after the economic crisis, there are dark undercurrents of criminality moving through to fill the gaps left by a lack of jobs and hope. But there is also tenderness and beauty. All of life is here, and the way ordinary lives are shaped by forces outside of their control is powerfully evoked.
“We have an outstanding shortlist of eight political novels for this year’s Orwell Prize for Fiction. All of them are winners. But the single work that has finally emerged as our overall champion is Donal Ryan’s Heart, Be at Peace. For its clarity. For its twenty-one perfectly pitched voices. For the neatness and breadth of its form. For its humanity and kindness. Here is a small deprived community in rural Ireland – after the Good Friday Peace Accord and the collapse of the Celtic Tiger – suffering and recovering from the bruises of its political and economic past. The boom years – in both senses of that word, might be over – but, in Donal Ryan’s exceptional Heart, Be At Peace, the echoes still reverberate and hum—Jim Crace, chair of the judging panel” Read more...
The Best Political Novels of 2025: The Orwell Prize for Fiction
Interviews where books by Donal Ryan were recommended
Books by Irish Authors
Home to the Blarney Stone — said to bestow “the gift of the gab” — and with a long tradition of valuing bards and wandering storytellers, it is no surprise that Ireland has produced some of the most recognised names in the English language canon. Considering the small population, Irish authors continue to punch well above their weight in publishing. Here we bring you a selection of Irish authors that have been recommended on Five Books by experts, from bestselling and award-winning contemporary writers to both famous and less well-known classic authors.
The Best Political Novels of 2025: The Orwell Prize for Fiction
From a book based on the actual love letters a British prime minister sent to his mistress in the run-up to World War I, to a fantastical tale that takes its cue from the Epic of Gilgamesh, there’s a wide variety of novels to choose from on the shortlist of this year’s Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. The comments are from the judging panel, chaired this year by British novelist Jim Crace.
