LONGLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING
A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023: NATURE AND TRAVEL

When Kerri and her partner M moved to a small, remote railway cottage in the heart of Ireland they were looking for a home, somewhere to stay put. What followed was a year unlike any other.

Cacophony of Bone maps the circle of that year - a journey from one place to another, field notes of a life - from one winter to the next. It is a telling of a changed life, in a changed world - and it is about all that does not change. All that which simply keeps on - living and breathing, nesting and dying - in spite of it all.

This is an ode to a year, a place, and a love, that changed a life.

"[A] generous, glowing book. ní Dochartaigh is on intimate terms with the natural world . . . [and] Cacophony of Bone is distinctly innovative in form. This attention to form is a considerable narrative achievement. It [. . . ] persuades the reader to look, assess and imagine afresh" - * Irish Times *

"The delight of ní Dochartaigh's writing is her capacity to measure compassion against observation. Her wisdom is like water - too strong, and too elusive, to be hooked . . . This is the book's power - that it fills the needs of the person who stands before it . . . It is a book that creeps into the reader" - * Caught by the River *

"In poems and essays, Ní Dochartaigh writes in exquisite detail of the seasons, beginning with the "ghost-trace, moon-white" and silent winter that kicks off a new phase of life" - * Los Angeles Times *