The Wren, the Wren

A Novel

By: Anne Enright

Narrated by: Anne Enright, Aoife Duffin, Owen Roe, Liza Ross

Winner of the 2024 Writers’ Prize in Fiction • Shortlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction • Named a Best Book of the Summer by The Guardian and The Times • Named one of Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 Books of 2023, one of the Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year by Time, The New Yorker, Kirkus Reviews, The Guardian, Library Journal, Harper's Bazaar, The Conversation, and Kobo Canada

From Booker-prize winning author Anne Enright, an astonishing novel about the love between mother and daughter—sometimes fierce, often painful, but always transcendent.

"Carmel had been alone all her life. She had been alone since she was twelve years old. The baby knew all this. They looked at each other; one life into another life, and the baby knew exactly how alone her mother had been."

Nell—funny, brave and so much loved—is a young woman with adventure on her mind. As she sets out into the world, she finds her family history hard to escape. For her mother, Carmel, Nell's leaving home opens a space in her heart, where the turmoil of a lifetime begins to churn. And across the generations falls the long shadow of Carmel's famous father, an Irish poet of beautiful words and brutal actions.

This is a meditation on love: spiritual, romantic, darkly sexual or genetic. A generational saga that traces the inheritance not just of trauma but also of wonder, it is a testament to the glorious resilience of women in the face of promises false and true. Above all, it is an exploration of the love between mother and daughter—sometimes fierce, often painful, but always transcendent.

©2023 Anne Enright (P)2023 McClelland & Stewart

Critic reviews

Winner of the 2024 Writers’ Prize in Fiction • Shortlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction • One of The Guardian’s Best Books of the Summer • Named one of Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 Books of 2023, one of the Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year by Time, The New Yorker, Kirkus Reviews, The Guardian, Library Journal, Harper's Bazaar, The Conversation, and Kobo Canada

“The exceptional, multigarlanded Irish writer returns with a three-generation, woman-centered family portrait marked by 'inheritance, of both trauma and of wonder,' and melodious, poetic echoes. Lyrical poems of birds punctuate the text, as do snatches of cruelty and violence between men and women, sisters, men and animals, even parents and children. But the familial connections are indelible and enduring. Tender and truthful as ever, Enright offers a beguiling journey to selfhood.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Anne Enright’s exquisitely crafted eighth novel, an intergenerational trauma story that is often very funny, infuses housework with as much poetry as big-ticket items like grief and love. . . . This is a powerful, thoughtful book by one of the great living writers.”
—New York Times

“Gritty, sad, sly, riotous—Anne Enright’s The Wren, The Wren takes the piss out of much, including Irish poets, mother+father+sister-hoods, bad and good sex and more, in gem-packed language that fizzes like a sidewalk firecracker. Must-read!”
—Margaret Atwood via Twitter