Praise for A Ghost in the Throat

"A Ghost in the Throat is something strange and very special: a ravishingly immersive telling of the way in which a poet and mother's obsession with a poet and mother who died centuries ago makes their different lives chime like bells."--Emma Donoghue

"A fascinating hybrid work in which the voices of two Irish female poets ring out across centuries. 'When we first met, I was a child, and she had been dead for centuries, ' writes Ní Ghríofa in her first work of prose--and what a debut it is. Earning well-deserved accolades abroad, the book merges memoir, history, biography, autofiction, and literary analysis... Lyrical prose passages and moving introspection abound in this unique and beautiful book."--Kirkus (starred review)

"One of the best books of this dreadful year ... Billed as a genre-busting blend of 'autofiction, essay, scholarship, sleuthing and literary translation', the book is an extraordinary feat of ventriloquism delivered in a lush, lyrical prose that dazzles readers from the get-go ... When you write like this there is almost nothing a writer cannot get away with."--Sunday Times

"Past versus present, blood versus milk, birth versus death, the Irish language versus the English: dichotomies abound, but the questions of women's lived experiences and who history remembers link them all."--Paris Review

"A book like this comes along once every few years and obliterates every clear definition of genre and form. I mean no exaggeration here: A Ghost in the Throat is astounding and utterly fresh."--Irish Independent

"With luminous language and candid details, this book shimmers with honesty and scholarship. A truly original read."--Sunday Independent

"Working from Eibhlín Dubh's famous poem, 'Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire', and her own research, the author manages to get closer to this historic woman than any other person has ever done before ... Her account is so vivid that we are almost there, with the pregnant Eibhlín Dubh on horseback, when she comes upon the body of her murdered husband and is so overcome with grief that she scoops up his blood and drinks it."--Clodagh Finn