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Girl in the Making
  • Published: 6 March 2025
  • ISBN: 9780241999349
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $24.99

Girl in the Making

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A passionate story of girlhood in a world not made for girls

Winner of the John McGahern Prize for Fiction 2025

A Guardian ‘Best Fiction of 2024’ Selection

‘Captured in careful, accurate detail … a novel of concealment and shocking revelation. Fitzgerald has managed to create an unforgettable heroine and a dark picture of the world around her.’ Colm Tóibín

‘Devastating’ Anne Enright

‘A gifted writer’ Irish Times

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Jean Kennedy is a gentle, perceptive girl growing up in a very strange world: suburban Dublin in the 1970s and '80s. In the company of her mother, her Aunty Ida, and her little brother Baby John F., Jean experiences love and joy. But home is not a safe place, and Jean is unequal and unprotected. When she speaks just one small part of the truth, she must quickly learn to navigate the dangers and possibilities of a world she scarcely understands.

Jean’s hypnotic, unsparing and ultimately hopeful voice captures the dreams and terrors of girlhood in a brutally hypocritical world, and offers glimpses of a better life. Through it all, Jean’s voice pulsates with insight and passion. Girl in the Making is a deeply moving, propulsive coming-of-age story from a major new talent.

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‘Beautiful’ Louise Nealon

'Magnificent' Aingeala Flannery

'Masterful' Kathleen MacMahon

‘Deeply moving and beautifully written … Fitzgerald’s prose has a crispness and a depth that surprises and delights’ Irish Times

‘Tender and perceptive … simply unforgettable’ Irish Examiner

'Reminiscent of the work of Tessa Hadley and Elena Ferrante' Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

'Devastating and superb' Irish Independent
  • Published: 6 March 2025
  • ISBN: 9780241999349
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $24.99
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About the author

Anna Fitzgerald

Anna Fitzgerald was born and raised in Dublin. Her first novel, Girl in the Making was the winner of the John McGahern Prize for Fiction 2025
AF

Praise for Girl in the Making

Anna Fitzgerald works through the eyes of a growing child, in a voice that is rich in nostalgic effect and devastating in its content, to show the Dublin suburbs as we have not seen them before.

Anne Enright

Girl in the Making is a beautiful story that captures the wisdom of childhood. Open this book and step into the world of Jean Kennedy. Prepare to be quietly transformed.

Louise Nealon

Fitzgerald has a voice that's completely her own, writing with such power and control it's hard to believe this is her debut. Girl in the Making is magnificent.

Aingeala Flannery

Writing this good is a rare thing. Anna Fitzgerald's account of childhood and family in 1970s and ’80s Dublin is a masterful portrait of a place in time. This writer has arrived fully formed.

Kathleen MacMahon

Nostalgic, rich, intimate and authentic

Irish Times

There is a poignant mix of insight and innocence that harks back to O’Briens The Country Girls

Sarah Gilmartin, Irish Times

This novel is devastating. And superb'

Anne Cunnigham, Irish Independent