Habitat

Habitat follows seven neighbours over the course of a surreal and life-changing week as their mid-century apartment building in Oslo begins to inexplicably break down around them. Connected by familial ties, long acquaintance, simmering feuds and longing glimpses, the residents of the building are bound to one another in more ways than they know. As each inhabitant is touched by strange and sinister phenomena, and their apartment-sized worlds begin to fray at the seams, they struggle to grasp that this is a shared crisis that cannot be borne alone. This remarkable debut novel from one of Ireland's most promising emerging talents is a startling parable of our uncertain age - a beautiful and inciteful examination of how we deal with seismic events beyond our comprehension and how we can only truly find meaning through shared understanding. Habitat is comparable to Kafka's Metamorphosis or Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceros in how people respond to an uncanny situation. The building components give their own take on being used for the purposes of these people, their voices containing the longer perspective of materials that existed before the building, and which will survive in some form beyond its destruction.

Catriona Shine grew up in Ireland and now works as an architect in Oslo. She is a recipient of an Arts Council Literature Bursary Award 2023 and her writing has appeared in The Dublin Review, Channel, Southword and elsewhere. She was awarded the Penfro First Chapter Prize in 2016 and IAFOR Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award in 2017. She was shortlisted for the Seán O'Faoláin Short Story Prize 2022 and the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2023 among others. Habitat was longlisted for the McKitterick Prize 2022.