Photo of writer Manchán Magan in a circular window effect with a snowy winter scene behind the circle. The idea is to create a sense of an Advent Calendar window|The cover of Manchán Magan's book Listen To The Land Speak is a black and white illustration depicted trees and bushes in the countryside at night|The words 2022 Literary Advent Calendar are inside a white circle. Behind the circle is a snowy winter scene depicting a snow-covered field with a mountain in the background at night

Manchán Magan

Welcome to Day 2 of our 2022 West Cork Literary Festival Advent Calendar. Our author today is Manchán Magan.

Manchán Magan is a writer and documentary-maker. He has written books on his travels in Africa, India and South America and two novels. He writes occasionally for The Irish Times, reports on travel for various radio programmes, and has presented dozens of documentaries on issues of world culture for TG4, RTÉ & Travel Channel. His books Thirty-Two Words For Field and Tree Dogs, Banshee Fingers and Other Words For Nature are acclaimed best-sellers.

Manchán is reading an extract from Listen to the Land Speak: A Journey into the wisdom of what lies beneath us which was published by Gill Books in October 2022. Today’s video unlocked on 2nd December 2022 and may be viewed below. Closed caption subtitles are available and may be turned on or off. Press the play button or click “Watch on YouTube” to watch it in full screen.

About our WCLF Literary Advent Calendar

2022 was another wonderful year for Irish writing and so many incredible books by Irish authors and authors living in Ireland were released this year. We’re delighted to bring you a small selection of these authors and we’ve invited twenty-four writers to submit a short video reading from their new books. Our selection is an attempt to show the wide range of Irish writing and in particular to focus on writers whose books we feel deserve more attention and those who were not previously featured in WCLF 2022 events. We hope that you will enjoy the chance to hear these writers reading their own work and to discover some new books for your reading piles.