few and far between: new eco fiction with Jan Carson
Schedule
Wed May 20 2026 at 07:00 pm to 08:00 pm
UTC+01:00Location
Lighthouse - Edinburgh’s Radical Bookshop | Edinburgh, SC
About this Event
From the award-winning author of and , a stunning, imaginative novel about a community living on a small group of islands. Join us for an Edinburgh lauch of Few and Far Between!
The Book:
Sometimes a utopia is not all that it seems...
In Few and Far Between, Carson, imagines an alternative version of Northern Ireland’s recent past. A prime minister with a mad plan to create a new county. An archipelago of haunted islands. A community seeking refuge from the Troubles. The perfect place to escape to - or so it appears.
It’s summer 2017 and the last few residents of the Lough Neagh Archipelago are facing imminent eviction. The flood planned to combat a devastating algae outbreak will submerge their homes, forcing them back to the Mainland for the first time in fifty years.
How will they cope with modern life? Will the Ark give up its secrets before it sinks? Can they leave the past behind?
‘Jan Carson’s most ambitious novel yet – bold in its counter-factual conception, confident in its scope, yet intimate in the knowledge of its characters, all of whom are accorded dignity and a quiet humanity. It’s also very, very funny’ -Lucy Caldwell
The Author:
Jan Carson is a writer based in Belfast. Her first novel, Malcolm Orange Disappears, was published in 2014 to critical acclaim, followed by a short-story collection, Children's Children (2016), and two flash fiction anthologies, Postcard Stories (2017) and Postcard Stories 2 (2020).
Her second novel, The Fire Starters (2019), won the EU Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the Dalkey Novel of the Year Award and her third novel, The Raptures (2022) was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year and the Kerry Group Novel of the Year. Her most recent short story collection, Quickly, While They Still Have Horses, was published in 2024. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and on BBC Radio 3 and 4. She has won the Harper's Bazaar short-story competition and has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award, the An Post Irish Short Story of the Year, and the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize.
Where is it happening?
Lighthouse - Edinburgh’s Radical Bookshop, 43-45 West Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, United KingdomEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 0.00 to GBP 5.04
