Mary Costello: ‘Norman Finkelstein – the son of Jewish Holocaust survivors – has paid a price for speaking uncomfortable truths’

My Life in Books

Mary Costello's 'Barcelona' is out now. Photo: Yamila

Mary Costello is the author of two novels, Academy Street (2014) and The River Capture (2019) and two collections of short stories, The China Factory (2012) and Barcelona, which has just been published by Canongate. The books on your bedside table? A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, by Nathan Thrall; Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal; Missing Persons, Or My Grandmother’s Secrets, by Clair Wills.

I’m currently reading Seamus Heaney’s Letters, edited by Christopher Reid. Heaney’s kindness and sincerity is evident, and he comes across as supremely intelligent, playful, and polite. Though, apparently, he was not without his flaws. Marie, his wife, once told him that his mind had all the manoeuvrability of a combine harvester.