IMPAC Dublin Literary Longlist
Under This Unbroken Sky has been long-listed for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award! This is such an extraordinary honour. Each year, librarians from around the world nominate their favorite books.
As a child, I spent countless hours in the library. On many occasions at closing time, the librarian would come find me lost inside a book and softly bring me back to the real world. Arms laden down, I would follow her (in those days it was always her) to the front desk. Even if it was minutes to closing and they were locking the doors behind me, I was never made to feel that I was an inconvenience. The librarian would open the covers and comment on another book I might enjoy the next time I came in. I loved that moment when a book was signed out in my name. Back then, a card was pulled out of the back pocket and stamped, making that lovely thunk-thunk sound, and then the card was slipped back in, and the book was mine for two glorious weeks.
Even today, when I walk into a library it feels like a sacred place to me.
So thank you for this nomination. Thank you for making a scrawny, eight year old kid, with braces, glasses and gangly limbs feel like she was part of something magical and that it was okay to be carried away into other worlds.