Nicholas Taylor-Collins in front of a bookshelf

Nicholas Taylor-Collins

Literary researcher | Creative reader

Tag: Kevin Barry

  • Derry in absentia: Bernard MacLaverty’s ‘Midwinter Break’

    Derry in absentia: Bernard MacLaverty’s ‘Midwinter Break’

    I toyed with the title of this blog. It could easily have been titled ‘Love in Amsterdam’, because the novel is mostly about a third-age love story between husband Gerry and wife Stella who go on holiday to Amsterdam. But Bernard MacLaverty’s Midwinter Break (Jonathan Cape, 2017) is shadowed by a hazy story of tragedy…

  • The beyond: ‘Night Boat to Tangier’ by Kevin Barry

    The Moroccan port city of Tangier nowadays conjures images of refugees and migrants preparing to cross the Strait of Gibraltar from Africa’s northernmost country, Morocco, to mainland Europe at Spain. A common entry point into the ‘West’, Spain’s southern coast is, in these images and narratives, a kind of limit point for ‘civilisation’. It would…