Kevin Power
Photo by Steve Gallagher
Kevin Power
Kevin Power is the author of Bad Day in Blackrock which was the inspiration for the 2012 award-winning Element Pictures film What Richard Did, directed by Lenny Abrahamson
He is the winner of the 2009 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the 2009 Hennessy XO Award for Emerging Fiction.
Kevin completed his PhD in American Literature at UCD in 2013.
His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, and many other places.
He teaches on the MPhil in Creative Writing in the School of English, Trinity College Dublin.
His new novel, White City, published by Scribner Simon & Schuster, is a darkly funny, gripping and profoundly moving novel about a life spinning out of control, and the corruption of material wealth that tears at society.
Praise for Bad Day in Blackrock
“Kevin Power is an author of magnificent control, stirring the deepest compassion with restless anger in this piercing contemporary novel”
Frank McGuinness
“It’s an excellent novel...It comes from the gut, its raw, its passionate and it suggests... that there are a group of young Irish novelists about to be set loose on the world like a pack of hungry wolves. Bring ‘em on, I say. I’ll read them”
John Boyne, author of The Boy in Striped Pyjamas
“This novel marks the debut of a deeply moral and probing writer - and a potentially great one”
Sunday Post (Ireland)
Praise for White City:
'Outstanding second novel... A brilliantly entertaining novel that is profound in the most unexpected ways. Power is that rarity, a genuinely funny novelist... Yet all the more remarkable is Power's handling of tone: this novel moves effortlessly between humour and sincerity; it is steeped in empathy and raw anger'
Literary Review
‘White City is both riotous rant and thoughtful coming-of-age tale..…with his well-established fluency with ideas and flair for exhilarating language, (Power) has made a tremendously enjoyable and impressive novel: sharp, current, comic, humane and satisfyingly constructed’
Giles Newington, Dublin Review Of Books
'Worth the wait... Narrative twists and turns keep the reader turning the page, but Power is also a master of striking imagery, with which he threads his text'
Irish Independent
‘A fast-paced and wickedly funny novel. Hugely entertaining. White City grabbed me from the opening pages and didn't let go’
Danielle McLaughlin, austhor of the critically acclaimed Dinosaurs on Other Planets
'The kind of novel that makes writers jealous and readers cancel all their plans to finish it. As a commentary on the classless contemporary upper class, it's cutting and hilarious; as a portrait of the artist as a young man waylaid by his membership in that class, it's profound, unpretentious, unapologetically intelligent, and, again, really hilarious'
Lauren Oyler, author of Fake Accounts
'Wild and beautiful, a whole addictive and breathlessly compelling world squeezed between these covers... A magnificent novel from a writer who is soaring to the most spectacular heights'
Billy O'Callaghan, author of Life Sentences
'White City is a dark, hilarious and emotionally profound study of the toxic effects of greed and entitlement. Also, a story brilliantly and movingly told. Couldn’t stop reading it. Will read it again'
Ed O'Loughlin, author of Not Untrue and Not Unkind
'White City is brilliant on the high-octane vacuity of Ireland’s rentier class. Power’s trademark shimmering prose counterpoints a driving narrative... Brilliant'
Eoin McNamee, author of Resurrection Man and The Blue Tango
'This is part thriller but mostly a look at what it means to grow up... This novel is pleasing on so many levels, both intellectually & emotionally... You'll laugh, you'll cry... Read it, read it, read it'
Claire Hennessy, author, editor & publisher at Banshee Press
Rights Sold
Bad Day in Blackrock: The Lilliput Press (Ireland) Simon & Schuster (UK, Commonwealth), Editora Rocco Ltda (Brazil), Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch (Germany), MarcoTropea Editore (Italy), Ediociones Urano (Spain)
White City Simon & Schuster (UK, Commonwealth & US)
https://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/html5/#/radio1/21941120
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2021/0423/1211625-reviewed-white-city-by-kevin-power/