Ahead of the Belfast Book Festival 2026, The Crescent is offering a taste of Festival events in a new series called Bookmarks. Join us at The Crescent for the highly anticipated launch of Jan Carson’s new novel Few and Far Between.
In Few & Far Between, award-winning writer Jan Carson, imagines an alternative version of Northern Ireland’s recent past. A prime minister with a mad plan to create a new county. An archipelago of haunted islands. A community seeking refuge from the Troubles. The perfect place to escape to – or so it appears.
It’s summer 2017 and the last few residents of the Lough Neagh Archipelago are facing imminent eviction. The flood planned to combat a devastating algae outbreak will submerge their homes, forcing them back to the Mainland for the first time in fifty years. How will they cope with modern life? Will the Ark give up its secrets before it sinks? Can they leave the past behind?
The event will be launched by Garrett Carr, and you will have the opportunity to purchase copies of the book.
Also available to purcahse on the night, will a special edition of the novel, from No Alibis Bookshop (or you can pre-order the special edition here). This edition includes a bespoke cover, an extra essay and a stunning map of the Neagh Archipelago designed by Rory Jeffers.
Jan Carson is a writer based in Belfast. She has published three novels, three short story collections and two micro-fiction collections. Her novel The Fire Starters won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland 2019. Jan’s latest novel, The Raptures was published by Doubleday in early 2022 and was subsequently shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Novel of the Year. Her short story collection Quickly, While They Still Have Horses was published by Doubleday (UK) in April 2024 and Scribner (US) in July 2024. Her writing has been aired on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and RTE.
She is the Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast 2025 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her first stage play, an adaptation of the children’s classic, The Velveteen Rabbit has been produced by Replay Theatre Company at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in March 2025. Her next novel, Few and Far Between is forthcoming in April 2026.