A Sixpenny Song

PRAISE FOR JENNIFER JOHNSTON: Masterly...her books bring to mind other Irish craftsmen such as William Trevor and the late Josephine Hart

A brilliant storyteller

Roddy Doyle called Johnston the best writer in Ireland. Mesmerising, powerful fiction

A bittersweet demonstration of the impossibility of love... shot through with a luminous magic

Masterly

'[Johnston's] novels display a surface smallness that belies their immense depths. She is a storyteller of truth and its consequences, and her books are deep and worthwhile considerations of the human condition... A Sixpenny Song is a truly moving novel evidencing beyond all reasonable doubt, if any such proof were required, not only that the fire has yet to burn out but that Miss Johnston, at 83 years old, remains at the very top of her game'

Johnston is noted for her brevity, the pared-back quality of her writing

'The Costa prizewinner and Booker-shortlisted Johnston knows how to tell a story succinctly...[she writes with] the deceptive ease of a skilled craftswoman...further proof of her skill as a writer'

'[A] beautifully written novella... so well-written, so deeply imagined, that the reader will find delight even in the encircling gloom'

Alluring and powerful