No Bones - by Anna Burns (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION 2002

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

Every single night and every single day Amelia goes upstairs to look at her treasure: a miniature plastic sheep, a Black Queen chess piece, a penny prayer for serenity, a tube of glitter - and thirty-seven black rubber bullets she's collected ever since the British Army started firing them...

Review Quotes

'Not only hilarious but also terribly tragic and awful and human and wonderful... No Bones is the best book I've read for ages. The world Burns creates is utterly convincing and surreal at the same time. I love the writing, the way she rolls the words around... No Bones is absolutely fantastic, and explores really exciting territory... the tone and timbre of the novel feel quite different to anything I've read before.' Julia Darling

'A chilling recognition that most survived the Troubles intact but some people will never be the same again...This account of a girl's life growing up in Belfast during the Troubles, which examines madness and sanity and questions our interpretation of both, is scary. Scarily well written, too... No Bones tears chunks out of our Peace Process comfort blankets. For it questions how a peaceful, mundane existence can be superimposed on a society inured over decades to violence.' Martina Devlin, Irish Independent

'Not only hilarious but also terribly tragic and awful and human and wonderful ... No Bones is absolutely fantastic, quite different from anything I've read before' Julia Darling, author of Crocodile Tears

About the Author

Anna Burns was born in Belfast in 1962. She moved to London in 1987.