Promotional Information

Nakedness rather than sex is the theme of Nuala Ni Chonchuir's Nude, nakedness and hiding linked like natural opposites, the delicacy of encounters and then the blunt proposition, the subterfuge and the revelation. Over it all is an elegant simplicity of language, a quilt of metaphor. Art and beauty are the threads that hold it together and ravel the lives of her characters. A beautiful collection of stories about beauty. -- William Wall, author of 'This Is The Country' Nuala Ni Chonchuir's stories in her extraordinary collection, Nude, are at once ravishingly sexual and achingly, vulnerably human. The title not only refers to the body but to the human heart. She understands both with profound delicacy and compassion, and she has a pitch-perfect narrative voice to illuminate truths that are rarely spoken. -- Robert Olen Butler author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

Table of Contents

• Madonna Irlanda
• Unmothered
• To Drift and to Lift
• Ekphrasis
• An Amarna Princess up North
• Mrs Morison of Haddo
• Cowboy and Nelly
• Before Losing the Valise, but Mostly After
• The Woman in the Waves
• As I Look
• Jackson and Jerusalem
• Xavier
• Night Fishing
• Roy Lichtenstein’s Nudes in a Mirror:
• We are not Fake!
• Sloe Wine
• Mademoiselle O’Murphy
• Amazing Grace
• Juno out of Yellow
• In Seed Time, Learn

About the Author

Nuala Ní Chonchúir is an Irish short fiction writer and poet, born Dublin 1970. Her short fiction collections The Wind Across the Grass (2004) and To the World of Men, Welcome (2005) were published by Arlen House. Her poetry collections Tattoo:Tatú (2007) and Molly’s Daughter (2003) appeared from the same publisher. She has won many literary prizes, including RTÉ Radio’s Francis MacManus Award and the Cecil Day-Lewis Award. Nuala lives in Galway with her partner and children.

Reviews

An affecting compendium of short stories centred on the theme of nudity and sensuality is the latest offering from Dublin-born poet and author Nuala Ni Chonchuir. The focus of these stories is not of a sexual nature; Ni Chonchuir emphasises the normality of life and, on occasion, the suggestive yearning of couples in thrall to each other, but rarely anything more daring. Her tales are complemented by varying backdrops - from the sultry heat of Barcelona to Parisian walkways - and, throughout, by fluid and descriptive prose: "The sea, the sea. It's as huge as the sky... it's dark like thunderclouds, as dangerous as war." The stories featured here are generally no more than a couple of pages in length; it is a testament to Ni Chonchuir's ability that, even allowing for such brevity, Nude is still a success. -- Fachtna Kelly and Julian Fleming