Description

The first collection of Booker Prize winner Anne Enright’s non-fiction writing about culture, literature and her own life

‘A joy to read’ MAGGIE O’FARRELL

‘Anne Enright might just be Ireland’s greatest living writer’ THE TIMES

For thirty years Anne Enright has been paying attention: casting her lucid and distinctive gaze over the world, literature and her own life, and gifting us with her precise insights.

Taking us from Ireland to Canada to Honduras, these essays delve into her family history, explore the free voices and controlled bodies of women in society and fiction, and offer new perspectives on writers including Alice Munro, Toni Morrison and James Joyce.

Electrifying, probing and exuberant, this is a defining collection from one of our most distinguished literary voices.

*A Book of the Year for the Observer, New Statesman and Independent*

‘One of the best essayists alive’ MEGAN NOLAN, OBSERVER

‘Confirms the intelligence, compassion and humour of the mind behind the novels’ INDEPENDENT

‘A glorious antidote to the mad, sad world’ EIMEAR MCBRIDE

‘So alert, so attuned, so alive’ LUCY CALDWELL

Publisher Review

With all its incisiveness, wit and brilliant sanity, Anne Enright’s Attention provides a glorious antidote to the mad, sad world — Eimear McBride The provocative, wise, compassionate turns her writing takes, always so alert, so attuned, so alive — Lucy Caldwell Anne Enright’s essays are a joy to read: incisive, wise, often humorous, they are explorations of the way we live in the world today. I turned down so many page-corners as I read that I now cannot shut my copy of the book. — Maggie O’Farrell Anne Enright might just be Ireland’s greatest living writer… This autumn she’s publishing a collection of essays… I’m rereading her novels in anticipation — Laura Hackett * The Times, *Autumn Picks of 2025* * Anne Enright is a dazzling novelist…and an insightful essay writer… Attention confirms the intelligence, compassion and humour of the mind behind the novels * Independent * In Attention you can experience the energy of her essayistic mind, whirring with ideas of justice, truth and imagination. It’s a remarkable place to be * Sunday Times * What a pleasure this book is… I have admired Enright’s writing for a long time, but it struck me that she is one of the best essayists alive, as well as one of the best novelists, and ought to get more recognition for the former — Megan Nolan * Observer * My feeling reading this collection is that each precious line needs going over twice. First for the sound and shape of the words, the second for their meaning… [Enright] write[s] like a sharp, funny fallen angel and we will pay attention * Guardian * Enright’s writing has a sense of searching, as though you are thinking along with her? – a style that renders her insights no less brilliantly sharp * Observer, *Books of the Year* * It was hard to select my favourite essays of 2025…the standout publication was Attention… [which] confirms the intelligence, compassion and humour of the mind behind the novels * Independent, *Books of the Year* *