“Baume’s brilliantly vivid descriptions of both man and beast and their isolated existence mark her out as a true literary talent.” – The Irish Times

Our third season of Debut Voices kicks off with a reading from one of the most intriguing new voices in Irish literature, Sara Baume.

Poignant, perceptive and powerfully lyrical, Baume’s award-winning debut novel Spill Simmer Falter Wither opens in the springtime as two misfits – one an eccentric loner and the other a one-eyed dog – forge an unlikely relationship. In a tired seaside town, these outcasts find solace in each other. Part Kjersti Skomsvold, part Patrick McCabe, Spill Simmer Falter Wither is a wholly different kind of love story, one that spans the four seasons echoed in the novel’s title. Written with tremendous empathy and insight, Baume’s debut captures the incremental destructive essence of loneliness, and confirms the talent so emphatically acknowledged by the astounding hat trick of prizes.

Sara Baume was born in Lancashire and grew up in Co. Cork. She studied fine art and creative writing and her short fiction has been published in journals such as The Stinging Fly magazine and the Dublin Review. She won the 2014 Davy Byrnes Short Story Award and the 2015 Hennessy New Irish Writing Award. She now lives in Cork with her two dogs.

Previous Debut Voices authors include Johanna Lane, author of Black Lake; Darragh McKeon, author of All That Is Solid Melts Into Air; Eimear McBride, author of A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing; and Colin Barrett, author of Young Skins.