A sensational first novel by a young author
Sally Rooney's debut novel Conversations with Friends has aroused a unique response in the English-speaking world from readers and literary publicists alike: an unknown author became a literary celebrity literally overnight, her book topped the sales charts and cultural sections of Irish and Anglo-American newspapers and won numerous literary awards.
The novel offers the story of a twenty-one-year-old Dublin student and poet Frances, her friend Bobbi and a slightly older married couple, actor Nick and photographer Melissa; together with the narrator Frances, we follow the complex dynamics of their relationships, intellectual debates and love affairs. The titular "conversations with friends" are extremely open; Frances, Bobbi, Nick and Melissa talk about sex and friendship, art and literature, politics and gender and, of course, each other with ruthless honesty.
The book can thus be read as a romantic comedy, full of infidelity, sex, alienation and rapprochement, and at the same time as a powerful feminist story about the lives and minds of young women today. In any case, the reader is in for a fascinating, meticulously researched and exquisitely written novel about relationships, intimacy, communication with the environment and personal maturation.
Winner of the 2017 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year.
