Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt. Published by Jonathan Cape, Vintage, €16.99
How fortunate are the students in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin, where the teaching staff includes one of the best writers of our generation.
Seán Hewitt is a poet, novelist, memoirist and critic. His first collection of poetry, Tongues of Fire in 2020, was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and won The Laurel Prize the following year. His second collection of poems, 2024’s Rapture’s Road, was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.
In between these two, his memoir All Down Darkness Wide, a masterpiece of writing and a story of great pain and emotion told with such honesty, won The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2022, arguably Ireland’s foremost award in this sphere. Seán’s work has been translated into more than 10 languages, and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
He has written scholarly works on figures such as W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Roger Casement and Emily Lawless.
Seán is about to become even better known following the publication of his first novel, Open, Heaven. This is a love story, and what can be more universal than this for a theme? However, when the love is unrequited, and a first love, the pain of such can be unbearable.
In Seán’s case, as a homosexual teenager, he too fell in love, but with a straight friend. This led to a torturous period when he spent most of his time juggling many different scenarios in his head. It also became the inspiration for Open, Heaven.
Set in the English countryside, Open, Heaven unfolds over the course of a year as two teenage boys meet and transform each other’s lives.
This is a story as old as time itself. The shy James dreams of a life far from his small village. His world is turned on its head with the arrival of Luke, sent to live with his aunt and uncle on a nearby farm.
Rugged, handsome, impulsive and charismatic, Luke spells danger, but his character is also mesmeric.
However, this show of bravado belies the fact that he has his own anxieties and hopes.
The pair form a bond, but one that changes with the seasons. For James, it proves to be a life-changing first love, one that is terrifying and thrilling.
Tenderly written, as one might expect of a man of words, Open, Heaven takes readers by the hand as they traverse a story that is moving, tender, cruel at times, but ultimately gives hope. It shows the possibilities of love in all its forms.
The Book Corner’s trio of treasures...
In celebration
Dublin, Written In Our Hearts,
edited by Declan Meade. Published by The Stinging Fly, €15
Dublin, Written In Our Hearts was commissioned to showcase the work of some of the many writers who have been writing about the city during the first quarter of the 21st century. It offers a unique snapshot in time, a celebration of the various different styles and approaches adopted by writers whose work continues to be inspired and animated by the capital.
Twenty-two household names have contributed their work to this collection, and their submissions were lovingly curated and published by Declan Meade and his team at The Stinging Fly. The book is also a celebration of 20 years of the One Dublin One Book campaign.
The main objective of this reading campaign is to put a good book into a reader’s hand, and to encourage others to pick it up and stretch their imaginations. The One Dublin One Book initiative has been a great success.
Timely reminder
Hope, The Autobiography, by
Pope Francis. Published by
Penguin/Viking, €23
Timed to be released for the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year in 2025, little could we have imagined that this insight into the life of Pope Francis would also stand as a celebration of a man we would lose too soon.
It is not your standard autobiography, but the late Pontiff does offer insights into his love for football, tango, music and literature while addressing issues such as migration, warfare, the role of women in the church and the environmental crisis. The son of Italian migrants, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in a working-class part of Buenos Aires a week before Christmas in 1936, one of five children.
Qualifying as a chemical technician, he studied philosophy and became a priest in 1969. The first Jesuit to become pope, Francis was elected the 266th Pope a dozen years after becoming a cardinal in 2001.
On 21 April 2025, Pope Francis died at the age of 88.
The classic
Grimms’ Tales for Young and Old, by Philip Pullman. Published by Penguin Classics, €14.50
Few writers in history have proven to be such crafted storytellers as the Grimm brothers. Jacob was born a year before Wilhelm in 1785, and more than two centuries later their works are still loved. The siblings collected the tales which they retold with passion, and they had their fingers on the pulse of popular culture of the time.
Their first collection of 86 tales was published in 1812, and the last in 1857, when the volume consisted of more than 200 tales. Both brothers died within six years of the final collection. The tales they gathered, edited and published included classics such as Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Rumplestiltskin, The Frog Prince, and Hansel and Gretel.
The originals were not so sterilised and the characters in them behaved in a much more menacing way, their evil threatening the innocent good. A darkness lurks within.
Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt. Published by Jonathan Cape, Vintage, €16.99
How fortunate are the students in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin, where the teaching staff includes one of the best writers of our generation.
Seán Hewitt is a poet, novelist, memoirist and critic. His first collection of poetry, Tongues of Fire in 2020, was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and won The Laurel Prize the following year. His second collection of poems, 2024’s Rapture’s Road, was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.
In between these two, his memoir All Down Darkness Wide, a masterpiece of writing and a story of great pain and emotion told with such honesty, won The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2022, arguably Ireland’s foremost award in this sphere. Seán’s work has been translated into more than 10 languages, and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
He has written scholarly works on figures such as W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Roger Casement and Emily Lawless.
Seán is about to become even better known following the publication of his first novel, Open, Heaven. This is a love story, and what can be more universal than this for a theme? However, when the love is unrequited, and a first love, the pain of such can be unbearable.
In Seán’s case, as a homosexual teenager, he too fell in love, but with a straight friend. This led to a torturous period when he spent most of his time juggling many different scenarios in his head. It also became the inspiration for Open, Heaven.
Set in the English countryside, Open, Heaven unfolds over the course of a year as two teenage boys meet and transform each other’s lives.
This is a story as old as time itself. The shy James dreams of a life far from his small village. His world is turned on its head with the arrival of Luke, sent to live with his aunt and uncle on a nearby farm.
Rugged, handsome, impulsive and charismatic, Luke spells danger, but his character is also mesmeric.
However, this show of bravado belies the fact that he has his own anxieties and hopes.
The pair form a bond, but one that changes with the seasons. For James, it proves to be a life-changing first love, one that is terrifying and thrilling.
Tenderly written, as one might expect of a man of words, Open, Heaven takes readers by the hand as they traverse a story that is moving, tender, cruel at times, but ultimately gives hope. It shows the possibilities of love in all its forms.
The Book Corner’s trio of treasures...
In celebration
Dublin, Written In Our Hearts,
edited by Declan Meade. Published by The Stinging Fly, €15
Dublin, Written In Our Hearts was commissioned to showcase the work of some of the many writers who have been writing about the city during the first quarter of the 21st century. It offers a unique snapshot in time, a celebration of the various different styles and approaches adopted by writers whose work continues to be inspired and animated by the capital.
Twenty-two household names have contributed their work to this collection, and their submissions were lovingly curated and published by Declan Meade and his team at The Stinging Fly. The book is also a celebration of 20 years of the One Dublin One Book campaign.
The main objective of this reading campaign is to put a good book into a reader’s hand, and to encourage others to pick it up and stretch their imaginations. The One Dublin One Book initiative has been a great success.
Timely reminder
Hope, The Autobiography, by
Pope Francis. Published by
Penguin/Viking, €23
Timed to be released for the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year in 2025, little could we have imagined that this insight into the life of Pope Francis would also stand as a celebration of a man we would lose too soon.
It is not your standard autobiography, but the late Pontiff does offer insights into his love for football, tango, music and literature while addressing issues such as migration, warfare, the role of women in the church and the environmental crisis. The son of Italian migrants, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in a working-class part of Buenos Aires a week before Christmas in 1936, one of five children.
Qualifying as a chemical technician, he studied philosophy and became a priest in 1969. The first Jesuit to become pope, Francis was elected the 266th Pope a dozen years after becoming a cardinal in 2001.
On 21 April 2025, Pope Francis died at the age of 88.
The classic
Grimms’ Tales for Young and Old, by Philip Pullman. Published by Penguin Classics, €14.50
Few writers in history have proven to be such crafted storytellers as the Grimm brothers. Jacob was born a year before Wilhelm in 1785, and more than two centuries later their works are still loved. The siblings collected the tales which they retold with passion, and they had their fingers on the pulse of popular culture of the time.
Their first collection of 86 tales was published in 1812, and the last in 1857, when the volume consisted of more than 200 tales. Both brothers died within six years of the final collection. The tales they gathered, edited and published included classics such as Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Rumplestiltskin, The Frog Prince, and Hansel and Gretel.
The originals were not so sterilised and the characters in them behaved in a much more menacing way, their evil threatening the innocent good. A darkness lurks within.
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