W9

An essential primer for the way we live now, W9 & Other Lives spans the world - from Cuba to Connemara, from the Mediterranean to London’s Maida Vale.

The lives of the characters are as varied as the settings. The characters depicted in these stories lead lives which are quintessentially modern: lonely, rootless, and uncertain. Yet these are not stories of complaint, or lament or melancholy. On the contrary, they illuminate and celebrate the courage and joy that are to be found flourishing in the most unlikely corners of human experience.

“For the next half-hour or so, while the storm raged, the city would be awash with rain. But then, the rain would stop and the clouds would move on, hurried by the wind, and the rainwater would drain away, along the gutters and down the drains and into the rivers, taking all the heat and dust of the city along with itself; and the rainwater would flow on, bearing its cargo, until eventually it tumbled out into the sea.

And then, when the people of the city awoke, they would discover their streets were not sticky and dirty, as they had left them the night before; they would discover their streets were clean and cool and as if new; they would find that the air was dry, and that it was possible to breathe again; they would find the sky was blue and clean and open; and they would find that the sun, where it fell, was warming the chilly world with its touch.”

Copyright © Carlo Gébler (1996)

from the collection W9 & Other Lives

Several of the stories reflect on the urban experience of Belfast conflict and its particular stresses.