No Bones

A stunning debut novel about a little girl growing up in Belfast, from the author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel, Milkman. "Marvellous: shocking, moving, evocative" (Daily Mail).

"Anna Burns is excellent at evoking the strange ecosystem that emerges during protracted conflict."   -  Claire Kilroy, The Guardian

This is a book about feelings, family, sex, and Ireland - but don't tell Amelia that. She's the one growing up in the mad family, in the mad society, who doesn't want to know what's going on. But things are going on: eight-year-olds collecting very peculiar treasure; babies who might be, or might not be, bombs; schoolgirls bringing guns into schoolyards; and, of course, lots of food and bad, bad sex. If Amelia is to live she needs to change. Can she, though, in a place where people don't know how to look after themselves, and so wouldn't know how to look after one another?

"Burns never once winces or loses control of her material in this mordant, wry, unforgiving tale of the loss of innocence, for a girl and her country."  -  Kirkus Reviews

A shattering and blackly funny debut in the tradition of Roddy Doyle.  Anna Burns has produced a compassionate, bitterly acute, witty portrait of the darkest days of Northern Ireland's history. No Bones could well emerge as Belfast's Dubliners.

Orange Prize Nominee for Fiction Shortlist (2002)