The unforgettable protagonist of Louise Kennedy’s ‘Trespasses’ is 24-year-old Cushla Lavery, a Catholic schoolteacher living in 1975 in a small town outside Belfast. The novel narrates the story of her love affair with an older, married, Protestant barrister with the same wit and eye for detail as are on display in her book of stories ‘The End of the World is a Cul de Sac.’ (Colm Tóibín)

Louise Kennedy grew up in Holywood, Co. Down.  Her short story collection, The End of the World is a Cul de Sac (Bloomsbury 2021) won the John McGahern Prize.  Her debut novel, Trespasses (Bloomsbury 2022) won Eason’s Novel of the Year at An Post Irish Book Awards, and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize.  Before she started writing, she spent nearly thirty years working as a chef.  She lives in Sligo.