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Audrey Magee

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The Colony Hardcover – February 3, 2022

by Audrey Magee (Author)

4.3 1,769 ratings

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In 1979, as violence erupts all over Ireland, two outsiders travel to a small island off the west coast in search of their own answers, despite what it may cost the islanders.

It is the summer of 1979. An English painter travels to a small island off the west coast of Ireland. Mr. Lloyd takes the last leg by currach, though boats with engines are available and he doesn't much like the sea. He wants the authentic experience, to be changed by this place, to let its quiet and light fill him, give him room to create. He doesn't know that a Frenchman follows close behind. Jean-Pierre Masson has visited the island for many years, studying the language of those who make it their home. He is fiercely protective of their isolation, deems it essential to exploring his theories of language preservation and identity.

But the people who live on this rock--three miles long and half a mile wide--have their own views on what is being recorded, what is being taken, and what ought to be given in return. Over the summer, each of them--from great-grandmother Bean Uí Fhloinn to widowed Mairéad to fifteen-year-old James, who is determined to avoid the life of a fisherman--will wrestle with their values and desires. Meanwhile, all over Ireland, violence is erupting. And there is blame enough to go around.

An expertly woven portrait of character and place, a stirring investigation into yearning to find one's way, and an unflinchingly political critique of the long, seething cost of imperialism, Audrey Magee's The Colony is a novel that transports, that celebrates beauty and connection, and that reckons with the inevitable ruptures of independence.

Print length

376 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Faber & Faber
Publication date

February 3, 2022
Dimensions

5.31 x 1.06 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

0571367593
ISBN-13

978-0571367597
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Get to know this book

What's it about?
In 1979, an English painter and a French linguist visit a small Irish island, where they grapple with the islanders' values and desires amidst a backdrop of violence and imperialism.
Popular highlight
What are you up to, Séamus? My name is James. And you know that. Your Irish name is Séamus. I use my English name. I prefer the Irish. It’s not your choice, JP.
61 Kindle readers highlighted this
Popular highlight
Why aren’t you in Algeria unpicking the damage caused by French? Why come here giving out to the English for all their awfulness when you have done exactly the same.
58 Kindle readers highlighted this

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Faber & Faber; International Edition (February 3, 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 376 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0571367593
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0571367597
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.08 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 1.06 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,544,119 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.3 1,769 ratings

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Audrey Magee

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Audrey Magee was born in Ireland and lives in Wicklow. Her first novel, The Undertaking, was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, for France's Festival du Premier Roman and for the Irish Book Awards. It was also nominated for the Dublin Literary Award and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. The Undertaking was translated into ten languages and is being adapted for film. Her second novel, The Colony, published in 2022, has already been optioned for film and is receiving stellar reviews around the world. For those reviews, readings and interviews with Audrey, please visit her website www.audreymagee.com

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

1,769 global ratings

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Clayton Curtiss

It doesn't get any better than this

Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2022

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The joy of this novel is discovering a little known corner of our world and then living out one of the most vicious eras in world history, The story of an English painter and a French linguist on a small Irish island in the Atlantic becomes a true accounting of the Irish tragedy at the hands of the British and French. The book is long listed for the 2022 Booker and I dearly hope it wins so as to bring this marvelous piece of writing and story telling to a wide audience. Do yourself a favor and read it,

11 people found this helpful

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Hesh

different

Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2022

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Some what confusing at first but when you get into the story it is powerful. The sorrow of the Irish war is frightening.
Hesh

3 people found this helpful

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CDB

I cannot stop thinking about this book

Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2022

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Excellent. I loved so many things about this book-so many levels to it and it really makes me think about colonization and the present nature of it, too. Just stunning. I’m going to now go and read the first one she wrote. I just saw that in her profile. 🔥

6 people found this helpful

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Mr Suaveh

Too many words for such a simple story

Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2023

Appreciated some of the dialogue but only a couple characters kinda sort came to life. For me it was a long setup to a harsh ending without much in between. Not my style.

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2023

"The Colony" by Audrey Magee tells the story of a small island off the coast of Ireland. It reads like a poem with short, choppy one-line sentences, proving that those in the UK are likelier to honor a book with a unique narrative structure. I enjoyed it, mainly as the bond between visiting artist Mr. Lloyd and native islander James develops, but it adds up to a much quicker read than its 376 pages suggest. Magee's style is hers and hers alone.

Mr. Lloyd and Jean-Pierre Masson both visit the island with very different goals. One wanted a quiet place to draw, and another was to study the language and keep it alive. Of course, the two men share a tiny space. The linguist's desire to keep the language alive and the artist's desire for a vacation spot that has evolved slightly find themselves immediately at odds. The love of tradition and the willingness to change will also barely conflict with each other.

The three conflicted souls, James (given name Seamus, as Jean-Pierre insists on calling him), Jean-Pierre, and Mr. Lloyd, focus on the part of their lives that they hold dear. Protecting their art, language, and future are their singular goals. Due to the story's timing, the author regularly takes to non-connected stories about men killed in the IRA conflict. The islanders live disconnected from these troubles, but the incidents show how the language and culture are also dying.

The family on the island repeatedly says that they do not discuss politics on the island when the murders come up. Religion as the basis for the violence makes the conversation even more difficult. It makes the bickering about the language seem trivial. For that reason, I was a little anxious for the stories of the murders and our guests to mesh together since the arguing about the language became repetitive after a while. I felt we were supposed to agree with the linguist, but he came off as petulant.

That is not to say that isn't a lot of good stuff here. You could learn a lot about the significance of art, family, and tradition. I enjoyed the artist's apprentice theme and visual imagery. The author even had a way of building suspense over a large canvas. “The Colony” will be the quickest 370-page read of your life.

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Kindle Customer

A thought provoking read

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2022

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A considerate well written book in a different form. So thought provoking in its simplicity, yet very deep on so many levels.

5 people found this helpful

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Annie W

Powerful, incisive, and beautiful

Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2022

I loved this fascinating, unsettling, lyrical, and brilliant novel. It’s a 5-star read for me and a serious Booker Prize contender.

On the surface, this is a story about a remote island with several familiar story elements: an apprentice and his master, a love triangle of sorts, a generational family story, and the coming of age of an island boy.

But quickly we see that The Colony is about so much more: it’s about power, manipulation, betrayal, and the violent legacy of colonialism. It’s also about the smell of fish and paint and linseed oil, the symphony of seagulls, Ireland and the Troubles, a mother tongue, Gauguin and Manet, knitted jumpers, envy and jealousy, three drowned men, and the light between the waves.

The novel begins with the arrival of an English artist and a French linguist on a small Irish island during the summer of 1979. Mr. Lloyd, a landscape painter, worries about his waning talent and success. Jean-Pierre Masson, a French-Algerian linguist who has lost his own Arabic mother tongue, worries about Lloyd’s influence and lectures the islanders on colonial corruption of their language and lives. The artist and the linguist clash and argue; the locals view both outsiders with skepticism. But as the summer passes, the islanders find themselves seduced by their guests’ promises and schemes, especially young James Gillan who is longing for a different life.

The book is gorgeous and creative: sparse dialogue is contrasted with beautiful meditation on nature and art, and a playful narrative voice which slips into and zooms out of the characters. Equally slippery are the news vignettes of bombings and shootings in Northern Ireland which first punctuate the story as shocking interruptions, but then slowly seep into the minds and lives of the islanders as the sectarian violence escalates day after day. The effect is just stunning.

A powerful and incisive novel which I really hope we’ll see on a few award lists this year. Many thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC.

5 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

ujjwal kumar

The best book I ever Read

Reviewed in India on May 13, 2023

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this book is a whole different experience.

IGO

Colonialism

Reviewed in Germany on August 16, 2022

Verified Purchase

and its different ways of changing relations. It is about power and the way you cannot escape the reality of it.
Just having a personal life, a small life far away of big events is an illusion.

Amazon Customer

It’s not a safe time to be a young Irishman in London.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 16, 2022

Verified Purchase

‘It’s not a safe time to be a young Irishman in London.’
It wasn’t in 1979.
The Colony is set during that Summer on a remote Gaelic speaking island when Earl Mountbatten and others were blown up and sectarian assassinations or attempts took place almost daily. In London, I was told by a work colleague that he would no longer talk to me as I ‘had killed Mountbatten’.*
The Colony deals with the relationship between Ireland and England by focusing on an English artist coming to the Island to find himself. However, this is not some dreary weighty tome pointing fingers. The first thing that grabs the reader is the humour. Has humour died in contemporary Irish novels? It’s the lifeblood of the place from the dour, dry and black humour of the North to the lighter optimism in the South. Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness where the Chuckle Brothers wasn’t an act.
The second is the description of the life in a dying community. It’s not Man of Aran cod Irishness but the unescapable march of progress that condemns the picturesque to colourised photos of a black and white past nobody wants to live in.
The third is the subtlety of the story. Magee has conveyed the relationship vividly within a tiny cast seemingly marooned from the unfolding Troubles and yet as affected by it as its victims and perpetrators.
Some of the criticism I’ve read is that its too long (it’s a perfect length), its modernist (incredibly easy to read and do we still have to write like Jane Austen?) and the ending is weak (only its ideal as there is no ending to this relationship, only change).
Possibly the finest Irish novel since Solar Bones and Milkman.

*The Colony doesn’t answer why someone felt emboldened to say this, but it does supply the context.

39 people found this helpful

Anita Thomson

Loved this!

Reviewed in Australia on March 17, 2024

Verified Purchase

This novel was one of the most captivating I have read in a while. So beautifully written.

claire.wm

Evocative

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 10, 2022

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Well written and very evocative.

One person found this helpful

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