These Days

WINNER OF THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION 2023

“Adroit, precise storytelling, atmospheric and satisfying; These Days is a novel of real substance.” —Hilary Mantel, Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall

An “exquisitely lyrical” (Louise Kennedy) novel from a singular Irish writer following two sisters over the course of four nights as they reckon with their futures in war-torn Belfast.

April 1941: Belfast has escaped the worst of the Second World War—so far. Over the next two months, it will be so destroyed from above that people will say, in horror, “My God, Belfast is finished.” Many won’t make it through, and those who do will be forever changed.

Living amid the rubble are sisters Emma and Audrey. One is engaged to be married; the other is in a secret relationship with another woman. As the bombs fall, and tomorrow feels further and further away, these young women must grapple with the cultural expectations standing firm around them, and try to seize control of their destinies. After all, Emma thinks, if one is to survive, one must survive for something.

Featuring the voices of the community—from their mother to the wee girl down the road—These Days is a timeless and poignant tale of interrupted girlhood, life under duress, and the struggle to stay true to ourselves. Winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Lucy Caldwell’s portrait of the Belfast Blitz is to be cherished.

About the Author

Lucy Caldwell was born in Belfast in 1981. She is the author of three previous novels, several stage plays and radio dramas, and two collections of short stories, Multitudes and Intimacies. She won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2021 for “All the People Were Mean and Bad.” Other awards include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the George Devine Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize and a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018, and in 2019 she was the editor of Being Various: New Irish Short Stories.