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Elizabeth Boyle was born in Dublin, grew up in Suffolk and returned to live in Dublin in 2013. She is a medieval historian specialising in the intellectual, literary and religious culture of Ireland and Britain. A former Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cambridge, she now works in the Department of Early Irish at Maynooth University, where she was Head of Department for five years until 2020. Fierce Appetites is her debut book.
A book of blazing honesty that allows all the gorgeous complexity of the past into our messy present to remind us we've always been like this -- Max Porter Really REALLY good -- Siobhan McSweeney Boyle has the skill to move us between the raw and the refined, the mind and the body, the past and the present, the mundane and the marvellous without ever losing control of her dark materials -- Fintan O'Toole An astounding piece of writing -- David Perry Just as brilliant and hard to define as everyone says it is. You should read it. You will both learn things and be entertained -- Jan Carson An eloquent plea for the value of curiosity and the life of the mind, standing up the robustness of scholarship against the frailty of individuals, the resilience of myth against brittle daily preoccupations. It's an agile story, irreverent, capacious and constantly surprising: like nothing else you will read -- Hilary Mantel Pure nectar for the imagination, and it's my book of 2022 -- Clodagh Finn * Irish Examiner * Bracingly honest, fiery, funny, scholarly, Fierce Appetites really is a wildly good book -- Hilary Fannin I just love it -- John Connolly Unusual, arresting and genuinely enriching -- Sharon Arbuthnot * Irish Times * Highly original . . . engagingly candid [and] thought-provoking -- Martina Devlin * Irish Independent * I loved this luminous, radical book about bodies in time. It is a deeply personal history, that simultaneously brings medieval myth and poetry to breathing, bleeding life. An education for the mind and the heart -- Clare Pollard Fiercely smart, strange, surprising -- Jennifer O'Connell * Irish Times * Extremely intriguing . . . I found myself completely absorbed. Fascinating -- Ryan Tubridy Everything is illuminated, magnified, revisioned: sexual desire, motherhood, family. Her writing is unorthodox, unnerving, and very exciting -- Tanya Shadrick, author of The Cure for Sleep An outstanding achievement. Fierce Appetites defies easy categorization, is brilliantly written and simply deserves to be read -- Darach O Seaghdha I absolutely loved this utterly original book. Immersing myself in Elizabeth Boyle's considerable brain was a true privilege, and the way she uses medieval narratives to unpick her own present was endlessly surprising and beautiful. I read it in two sittings, devouring her perspective on life, love, loss -- Clover Stroud [A] marvellous, astonishing, funny, moving, wise, reflective, deeply scholarly, fascinating book -- Aidan O'Sullivan All twelve essays are freighted with that fierceness the title trumpets * RTE Guide * This book is extraordinary . . . a wonderful work of women's memoir -- Sinead Crowley
