Orange Horses (Excerpt) (Electric Literature's Recommended Reading Book 242)

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"In “Orange Horses” Kelly displays a remarkable palette of tones; she is capable of crafting scenes of gentle humor or chill tragedy as well as generating moments of lyrical intensity bordering on the visionary. “Orange Horses” considers a family of travelers, or gypsies, from the perspective of a mother and wife badly beaten by her husband. In the Ireland of the time, the lack of legal support for abused women was a function of the prevailing moral ideology of the political and ecclesiastical authorities which tended not to interfere too deeply into what they considered the private domain of the family. In mid-century Ireland this led to a veil of silence around the physical, sexual and psychological abuse of women in the home." - Simon Workman

About the Author: Maeve Kelly, an Irish novelist, short-story writer and poet, was born in Ennis, Co. Clare and educated in Dundalk. She was a founding member of the limerick Federation of Women’s Organisations and the Limerick Refuge for Battered Wives, now called Adapt House, where she was an administrator for fifteen years. In 1972 she won the Hennessy literary award. She is the author of two short story collections, A Life of Her Own and Orange Horses , a satirical fairytale, Alice in Thunderland , two novels, Necessary Treasons and Florrie’s Girls, and two collections of poetry, Resolution and Lament for Oona . Kelly’s work has been translated into several european languages and has been broadcast on RTÉ and BBC. Kelly’s A Last Loving: Collected Poems was recently published by the Irish press Arlen House.

About the Guest Editor: Simon Workman is an English Lecturer at Carlow College. He has published essays on Irish poetry and culture in a number of journals and edited collections, and has written reviews and essays for the Irish Literary Supplement, Poetry Ireland, and The Review of English Studies. He is currently editing a collection of essays on Irish suburban culture.
Tramp is an independent publisher of fiction based in Ireland. Founded in 2014 by Lisa Coen and Sarah Davis-Goff, the press aims to publish just a few titles a year of outstanding quality. In 2015 they published Sara Baume’s debut Spill Simmer Falter Wither, which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, and won the Kate O’Brien Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. In 2016 they published Solar Bones by Mike McCormack which won the Goldsmiths Prize and the Irish Book of the Year Award. They have also published collections of short stories, and two other lost Irish classics in the ‘Recovered Voices’ list. For more information, please see their website.

About the Publisher: Electric Literature is an independent publisher amplifying the power of storytelling through digital innovation. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction. Recommended Reading is supported by the Amazon Literary Partnership, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. For other links from Electric Literature, follow us, or sign up for our eNewsletter.