Tramp Press, publisher of Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s A Ghost in the Throat and Mike McCormack’s Solar Bones, has acquired Ireland and UK rights for Water in the Desert Fire in the Night, a debut novel by Gethan Dick, to be published May 2025.
Water in the Desert Fire in the Night is a novel about mothering, wolves, bicycles, midwifery, post-apocalyptic feminism, gold, hunger and hope. It’s about an underachieving millennial, a retired midwife and a charismatic Dubliner who set out from London after the end of the world to cycle to a sanctuary in the southern Alps. It’s about the fact that the world ends all the time, and it’s about what to try to do next.
Speaking about the novel, author Gethan Dick, who was born in Belfast and grew up in the west of Ireland said: “I’ve always been interested in the end of the world. Long before I had kids, I was certain there was something about the idea of pregnancy and childbirth beyond the apocalypse – I talked for twenty years about writing a post-apocalyptic novel, and then in the first lockdown we ended up living for two months in a stone shepherd’s cabin on Mont Sainte Victoire. It was twenty metres square and we had no electricity, no running water, no toilet, and the roof leaked.”
Pre-orders are available online from kennys.ie as well as your local bookseller.
Feature Image – Gabrielle Dumon
