So Late in the Day

Claire Keegan's stories are translated into more than thirty languages. Antarctica won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Walk the Blue Fields won the Edge Hill Prize for the finest collection of stories published in the British Isles. Foster won the Davy Byrnes Award and in 2020 was chosen by The Times as one of the top fifty works of fiction to be published in the twenty-first century. Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Rathbones Folio Prize, awarded for the best work of literature, regardless of form, to be published in the English language. It won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award, the Ambassadors' Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.

An exquisite new short story from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Small Things Like These and Foster.

'A genuine once-in-a-generation writer.' The Times

After an uneventful Friday at the Dublin office, Cathal faces into the long weekend and takes the bus home. There, his mind agitates over a woman named Sabine with whom he could have spent his life, had he acted differently. All evening, with only the television and a bottle of champagne for company, thoughts of this woman and others intrude - and the true significance of this particular date is revealed.

From one of the finest writers working today, Keegan's new story asks if a lack of generosity might ruin what could be between men and women. Is it possible to love without sharing?

'Every word is the right word in the right place, and the effect is resonant and deeply moving.' Hilary Mantel

'Claire Keegan makes her moments real - and then she makes them matter.' Colm Tóibín

An exquisite new short story from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Small Things Like These and Foster.