Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan

The Irish bestseller about putting down roots in unfamiliar soil; about falling in love; and about how tradition and tales are born, nurtured and handed from one generation to the next.

Rich in plot and full of characters that have been neglected by Irish literature. - Guardian



At the start of the twentieth century, a young girl and her family emigrate from the continent in search of a better life in America, only to pitch up in Ireland by mistake. In 1958, a mute boy locked away in a mental institution outside of Dublin forms an unlikely friendship with a man consumed by the story of the love he lost nearly two decades earlier. And in present-day London, an Irish journalist is forced to confront her conflicting notions of identity and family when her Jewish boyfriend asks her to make a true leap of faith. Spanning generations and braiding together three unforgettable voices, Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan shows us what it means to belong, and how storytelling can redeem us all.



Ruth Gilligan is an Irish novelist and journalist. She has written three previous novels: Forget, which reached number one on the Irish Bestsellers' List when she was 19, making her the youngest person in Ireland ever to have done so, and Somewhere In Between and Can You See Me, both published while she was still at university. She writes and reviews for the Irish Times, the Irish Independent, theTLS and the Guardian.



Reminiscent of Téa Obreht, Nicole Krauss and Maggie O'Farrell... Wonderful



Graceful, confident, vivid... I loved this beautifully written novel



A rich and layered story of the complications, the mistakes and the heartbreaks of which a human life is made... I haven't read anything like it



Immensely readable and written with great flair



Brimming with concepts and yarns



Rich in plot and full of characters that have been neglected by Irish literature