Iris Halloran

Iris Halloran was born in Sligo in 1979. She read history at Galway, then spent eleven years as a records archivist for the western diocese — a job she describes as "reading other people's handwriting until you can hear their voice" — before publishing any fiction at all.

Her first novel, Cold Store (2016), won the Rooney Prize and was translated into nine languages. Her second, The Fetch (2021), was longlisted for the Booker Prize and adapted for radio.

The Salt Year is her third, and the first she has set in a place she can actually remember. She lives between Sligo and east London, and still takes occasional archival commissions, which she says is the only reliable way to find out what people actually did.