Book Details

Gripping, affecting, surprising. I inhaled it. -- Lisa McInerney

Spectacular . . . Dark, beautiful, at once grittily real and wildly magical. Insanely alluring. -- Donal Ryan

Blew me away with its power, anger and wit. ? Joseph O'Connor, Books of the Year

A big and rambunctious novel that casts a cold satirical eye on themes such as language, culture, identity, sectarianism, and the terrifying proximity of the past ? Sunday Times, 50 Greatest Irish Novels of the 21st Century

Shimmering with wit, simmering with an incandescent rage, shot through with a seam of wild magic, The Fire Starters is a powerful, disturbing portrait of East Belfast and its people and its hope for the future. I won?t be the only reader to proclaim that, in the best way possible, Jan Carson is on fire. ? Lucy Caldwell
Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast. Her first novel, Malcolm Orange Disappears, was published in 2014 to critical acclaim, followed by a short-story collection, Children's Children (2016), and two flash fiction anthologies, Postcard Stories (2017) and Postcard Stories 2 (2020). Her second novel, The Fire Starters (2019), won the EU Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the Dalkey Novel of the Year Award. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and on BBC Radio 3 and 4. She has won the Harper's Bazaar short-story competition and has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award and the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize. She specializes in running arts projects and events with older people, especially those living with dementia.