Sean O’Brien’s twelfth collection of poems, The Bonfire Party, is to be published by Picador in 2026. His work has received numerous awards including the Somerset Maugham and E. M. Forster, as well as the T. S. Eliot and Forward Prizes. His own translations include Dante’s Inferno and the Kazakh national poet Abai Kunanbayuli. He has written for the Royal National Theatre, for the RSC/ Live Theatre and for the ENO. He is also a novelist, short story writer and critic. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

 

In Sean O’Brien’s collection of stories, there is everything to be afraid of—books, paintings, libraries, mirrors, houses, run-down schools, trains, wolves, writers and painters. People may not be quite what they seem, or indeed they may not quite be people at all. The movement from calm to disquiet and then to terror takes only a moment. Why not open the door and enter the room where the nightmare or the comeuppance have been waiting for you? You know you want to.

 

‘Darkly thrilling.’

 

—Nicholas Royle

 

‘Often in the last scene, often in the last line, O’Brien...withdraws his offer of a pint of mild in the local piss-palace and nails your bottom lip to the bar instead...’

 

—M. John Harrison, TLS

 

‘Chills to the bone.’

 

—Suzi Feay

 

‘Sean O’Brien does for libraries what Ursula Andress did for bikinis. Read and rejoice!’

 

—Val McDermid

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