Adrian Duncan, born in County Longford, is a Berlin-based visual artist who originally trained as an engineer. His short fiction has appeared in literary journals both in Ireland and the USA. His acclaimed debut novel, Love Notes from a German Building Site, was published by The Lilliput Press and Head of Zeus in 2019, was shortlisted for the Dalkey Literary Emerging Writer Award and won the inaugural John McGahern Annual Book Prize. His second novel, A Sabbatical in Leipzig, was published by the Lilliput Press in 2020.
Remarkable … these 12 haunting, curious tales have settings as
diverse as coastal Ireland, post-Wall Berlin and Abu Dhabi.
*ExBerliner*
Adrian Duncan’s new collection consolidates his reputation as one
of the most captivating and distinctive voices in contemporary
Irish writing.
*Irish Times*
The overarching connection between these austerely executed but
richly imagined narratives has to do with the before and after of
aspiration and disappointment, hope versus despair.
*Totally Dublin*
Recalling James Joyce’s Dubliners, and the punctuation of tough,
ordinary, quotidian lives with occasional bursts of illumination
and epiphany, Midfield Dynamo is beautiful in its sparse, humorous
prose, born of a gruff, masculine tradition of Irish
literature.
*Extra.ie*
Exhilarating … These stories seek and discover scenes of beauty –
in the process permitting notes of lyricism to earn their place –
in overlooked and distinctly unglamorous contexts, to deeply moving
effect … in Midfield Dynamo, as in Duncan’s novels, the structures
of life must not only be built but endlessly renewed and maintained
– and this process, this world of construction, is the point of it
all, and the reward.
*Dublin Review of Books*
There's a real artist at work here
PAT CARTY, HOT PRESS
A very impressive book of short stories which shine a light on the
strangeness and absurdities of the modern world
MATTHEW GEDEN, IRISH EXAMINER
Recommended reading on RTÉ Today with Maura and Dáithí
These understated and immensely compassionate stories make a gem of
a collection
ANNE CUNNINGHAM, MEATH CHRONICLE
Lyrical, bizarre and mystifying … will remind readers of Claire
Keegan’s short stories, mixed with a little splash of Kevin Barry’s
style
LITVOX
One of the most interesting Irish writers at work today
NIAMH DONNELLY, IRISH INDEPENDENT
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