She is still in a lot of pain (the result of a surgical injury), and the interview is conducted with her perched on a low table or, periodically, standing up. I would like to think it could be seen as any sort of totalitarian, closed society Did that really happen?'Īlthough it is recognisable as this skewed form of Belfast, it's not really Belfast in the 70s. 'When I look back to 2014, with this horrendous pain, wondering, Will I even finish Milkman? And then Booker winner? The extremes… It feels wonderful, it feels dreamlike. In good Booker tradition, she has only had a couple of hours' sleep. 'I was thinking that when I got back to the hotel last night,' the 56-year-old author says when we meet on Wednesday.

When she was finally able to send the manuscript to her agent, it was turned down by several publishers. Go back four years and Burns was unable to write for excruciating back pain, living peripatetically around England, house-sitting when possible, struggling to make ends meet and using food banks (which she thanks in the acknowledgments of the book – and which in turn have now thanked her). As she makes her way across town, the narrator takes the reader on a journey as it tells the story and happenings of various members of the Doe clan.Winning the Man Booker Prize is clearly a life-changing event, but never more so than in the case of Tuesday night's surprise success, Anna Burns, who became the first Northern Irish writer to win the £50,000, or €57,000, award, for her third novel, Milkman. The stage for a confrontation is set when Jetty Doe breakings into a gun store and makes off with a weapon.

However, there are signs that the family’s patriarch, John, time at the top is coming to an end. The family is made up of criminals and victims who have the run of the place. In this book, the Doe clan lives in a small town of Tiptoe Floorboard. She attempts to avoid him and hopes that her mother won’t find out about the man, but rumors quickly spread in the small town and now the threat of violence is lingering.īurns is also the author of Little Consequences. Now, a local paramilitary known as the milkman has begun pursuing her. People notice her because she reads while walking and lately she has been taking French classes at night downtown. Milkman takes place in an unnamed city where middle sister stands out for all of the wrong reasons. If You Like Anna Burns Books, You’ll Love…

Anna burns books