I Could Read the Sky

‘A book of tunes without musical notes. It wrings the heart’ John Berger

WINNER: Encore Award

An old man lies alone and sleepless in London. Recalling an image from his childhood in the West of Ireland, he begins to remember a migrant’s life. Haunted by the faces and the land he left behind, he calls forth the bars and boxing booths of England, the potato fields and building sites, the music he played and the woman he loved.

Timothy O’Grady’s tender, vivid prose and Steve Pyke’s starkly beautiful photographs combine to make a unique work of fiction, an act of remembering suffused with loss, defiance and an unforgettable loveliness.

First published in 1997, I Could Read the Sky – an Irish life with echoes of the lives of unregarded migrant workers everywhere – has achieved the status of a classic.

‘Fiction rarely gets as close to the messy, glorious truth as do memories and photographs. This rare novel dares to use both’ Charlotte Mendelson, TLS

‘The voice that O’Grady has crafted succeeds so well. Pyke’s stark arresting images are laced between the paragraphs and chapters. The interplay between the two is delicately powerful’ Hilary White

‘A masterpiece’ Robert Macfarlane

‘O’Grady does not just respond to Pyke’s stark, beautiful photographs: he gives voice to thousands’ Louise Kennedy

‘The experience of Irish emigration uniquely and powerfully illuminated’ Mark Knopfler

Paperback: 288pp

Published: Wilton Square (November 2025)

ISBN: 9781800182714