Seán Hewitt in conversation with Alex Clark | Open, Heaven
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We are delighted to present an evening with Seán Hewitt to discuss his novel Open, Heaven in conversation with journalit Alex Clark on Thursday 5th June at 6.30pm. Open, Heaven is Seán Hewitt’s eagerly anticipated debut novel having already achieved critical acclaim and prestigious awards for his poetry. Seán will discuss his new book with Alex Clark and take questions from the audience. Admission is free but booking is essential. Please complete the form at the bottom of this page to reserve a place.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Seán Hewitt was born in 1990. He is the author of two poetry collections, Tongues of Fire and Rapture’s Road, and a memoir, All Down Darkness Wide. He collaborated with the artist Luke Edward Hall on 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World. Hewitt has received the Laurel Prize and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and been shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. He lectures at Trinity College Dublin and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
PRAISE FOR SEÁN HEWITT:
‘Hewitt writes with such tenderness and grace; in Open, Heaven, beauty, longing and the natural world form a single chord that strikes the heart of the reader with love’s impossibility. The heightened, poetic state of adolescence is perfectly captured here’
– ANNE ENRIGHT, Booker Prize-winning author of The Wren, The Wren
‘Open, Heaven beautifully conveys the pain and possibility of first love. Written with generosity, this is a coming-of-age story whose protagonist never turns his gaze from the friend he desires, nor from the man he longs to become’
– CAOILINN HUGHES, author of The Wild Laughter
‘‘Beautifully written, deeply felt, Open, Heaven does what the very best coming of age stories do: it takes us back to those moments we often dismiss in our own lives, when we felt so deeply, so intensely, and so purely that the world seemed to stop’
– MICHAEL MAGEE, author of Close to Home
‘A searchingly poignant and beautiful novel about how a first love can shape a whole life, Open, Heaven is a deeply felt, lyrical and impossibly tender read. Hewitt exquisitely conjures the passage of time and all the complexities of growing up queer, perfectly captures the way places and events become stitched into memory, and elucidates with rare power how transfixing, incandescent, and transfiguring a first love can be. It made my heart hurt in the best ways’
– HELEN MACDONALD, author of H is for Hawk
‘Incredibly atmospheric. Very God’s Own Country meets Heartstopper. I think people will love it’
– BRANDON TAYLOR, author of Real Life and The Late Americans
‘A gorgeous debut; perfectly encapsulates the dirt and muck of urgent adolescent desire – a novel that thrums with hidden love and concealed truths, it takes the hand of the reader and walks with them through the isolated village of the young queer self’
– ANDREW McMILLAN, author of Pity and Physical
‘A page-turning tale of a first love, Open, Heaven is so tenderly written, so exquisitely crafted. The writing halts time and gives us a visceral sense of this life-changing experience. A wonderful debut’
– MONIQUE ROFFEY, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch
