Scattered Love
Scattered Love
Les Amours Dispersées
Translated by Clíona Ní Ríordáin
Author: Maylis BesserieCouldn't load pickup availability
‘She entered the house like a shadow … She was like a divine elixir: one drop for each of my thoughts. … I could feel the breath of the warrior, the Queen of Ireland, and it intoxicated me with the wind of hope, like noble wine.’
She is Maud Gonne, the muse of writer William Butler Yeats. Yeats here returns as a ghost, having been buried in southern France in January 1939 at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. Ten years later his remains are repatriated to Ireland. He emerges from his grave to recount his thwarted love for Maud, a story blending with the movement for Irish independence in which they each played an integral part.
Yeats’ ghost has suddenly appeared as diplomatic documents have come to light, casting doubt on the contents of the coffin brought back to Sligo for a state funeral. Where did the poet’s body go? Does he still hover ‘somewhere among the clouds above’? What remains of our loves and our deaths, if not their poetry?
Maylis Besserie’s exciting new work follows on from Yell, Sam, If You Still Can (Le tiers temps). In her second novel, she turns her attention from Samuel Beckett to another Irish writer, W.B. Yeats. The connection between Ireland and France is forged once again in the smithy of art, culture and the days at the end of life.
Read an extract from Scattered Love on RTÉ Culture here
A Guardian Most Anticipated Book of 2023
An Irish Times Most Anticipated Book of 2023
An Irish Independent Most Anticipated Book of 2023
Details
Details
ISBN: 9781843518624
Extent: 192
Published:
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Praise and Reviews
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‘Maylis Besserie’s beautiful novel casts a brilliant light on life and love and death and what remains of us … The elegant prose and fluid translation have a balming, soothing quality. It is strange and fascinating to read Yeats’s sublimely ventriloquised voice, and Madeleine’s quest is absorbing, comedic, touching and true. The magic of Yeats has new life here.’ Donal Ryan
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‘Scattered Love is a haunting and immersive read, written with the kind of lyricality and depth of tone appropriate for a novel infused with the presence of Yeats. Besserie is almost painterly in the way she employs words, drawing her readers deep into the story she’s telling. This is a poem of a novel; the perfect vehicle for capturing Yeats in all his rich complexity.’ Jan Carson
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‘A truly beautiful literary novel from a wonderful storyteller.’ Joseph O’Connor
About the Author
Maylis Besserie was born in Bordeaux and now lives in Paris. She works as a producer for the radio channel France Culture. Besserie’s connection with Ireland started when her family sent her to spend summers in Ireland to learn English. Yell, Sam, If You Still Can (Le tiers temps) was her first novel and won the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman 2020. It has been sold to more than twenty different territories. Lilliput published her second novel, Scattered Love (Les amours dispersées) in 2023. Francis Bacon’s Nanny (La Nourrice de Francis Bacon) won the Prix du Roman des Écrivains du Sud 2023.
About the Translator
Translator Clíona Ní Ríordáin is the O’Donnell Chair of Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her most recent book is English Language Poets in University College Cork 1970-1980 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Her translation of Yell, Sam, If You Still Can was named runner-up for the Scott Moncrieff Prize 2023.