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Colin Barrett was born in 1982 and grew up in County Mayo. His stories have been published in The Stinging Fly, Granta, Harper's and the New Yorker. His first book, the short story collection Young Skins, won the 2014 Guardian First Book Award, the 2014 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and the 2014 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. In 2018 Barrett was selected as the Rolex Arts Initiative protege in Literature. His debut novel is forthcoming from Jonathan Cape.
A mesmerisingly powerful book, full of the strangeness and beauty of life. I've learned so much from Colin Barrett's work as a reader and writer...these stories are his best yet -- Sally Rooney Full of humour and small-town Irish colour... His [Barrett's] second collection confirms him as one of the very best short-story writers in the business * New Statesman, *Books of the Year* * A masterwork - by turns hilarious and heartbreaking... What fierce, tender stories. Totally unforgettable -- Brandon Taylor The stories in Homesickness are crafted with skill and flair. Colin Barrett anchors the work with emotional accuracy and careful delineation of character, and then, using metaphors and beautifully made sentences, he lets his narrative soar -- Colm Toibin Lyrical and tough and smart... His stories are set in a familiar emotional landscape, but they give us endings that are new -- Anne Enright Addictive, stylish and violently funny stories, with riches on every page - an outstanding collection -- Kevin Barry Shot through with dark humor, pitch-perfect dialogue and a signature freshness that makes life palpable on the page...Homesickness is graced with an original, lingering beauty * Stuart Dybek, New York Times Book Review * Even though we rarely enter their internal worlds, Colin Barrett conjures interiority through his linguistic precision and attention to external detail, so that each story lingers in the mind and haunts its successors -- Alexander Leslie * Times Literary Supplement * Superb...[T]here is an utterness to his attention, a devotion to the lives of his characters, that shifts the work into some more lasting place. Barrett is already one of the leading writers of the Irish short story, which is to braggingly say, one of the leading writers of the short story anywhere. He means every word and regrets every word. He just kills it * Guardian * Something struck me as I read these beautifully crafted, desperately sad, but often very funny stories: there is now a branch of English called the Colin Barrett -- Roddy Doyle
