CHARLIE BYRNE’S Bookshop will host to a series of book launches with one taking place tomorrow, and two on Saturday.
Alex Hijmans is a Dutch writer and journalist and a passionate Gaelgoir. He is known to many Galwegians from his time in the city where he ran the popular Bananaphoblacht Café on Dominick Street. He now lives in Brazil and is the Brazil correspondent for Dutch news agency GPD.
Alex will launch his new book Gonta in Charlie Byrne’s tomorrow at 6pm. Gonta (which means wounds ), published by Cois Life, is a collection of short stories about the people of Bahia, Brazil.
The author describes these as the darkest stories he has written. “Some of the stories never fail to upset me when I reread them,” he says, “but that’s exactly the reason why this collection is closer to my heart than any of the books I’ve written so far. I feel with this collection I’ve taken a big step forward as a fiction writer – a step I couldn’t have taken without these characters’ help.”
The first of Saturday’s launches takes place at 11am when Charlotte Curley, a radiographer at Galway University Hospitals, launches her first book; The Good Inventor, an adventure full of mystery and magic for children aged nine plus.
After a family tragedy Charlie is alone and scared as he travels from New York City to Connemara to live with his eccentric inventor uncle Ted. Charlie doesn’t know it yet, but some very unusual characters, some very good and some very bad, are also waiting for Charlie to arrive. There will be another launch for the book in UHG on December 8.
The second launch takes place at 1pm when Valerie O’Sullivan will sign copies of Ireland’s Atlantic Shore – People and Places from Mizen to Malin (Collins Press ). The book features photographs of the Atlantic coastline with articles from Lorna Siggins, Breda Joy, and Maria Moynihan.
Featured in the book are photographs of Aran Islander Páraic Póil who bakes brown bread; Rainier Krause, who farms oysters and mussels and fishes for mackerel and pollock; fishermen at Rossaveal, Johnaí Dubh who harvests seaweed in Carna; and Malachy Kearns, the bodhrán maker based in Roundstone.
All are welcome to the launches.
