Summary of Fools of Fortune
“Fools of Fortune” tells the tragic story of the Quinton family, an Anglo-Irish Protestant family who own a flour mill in County Cork. The novel relates how the Quintons’ lives are affected by the violence of the Irish struggle for independence in the 1920s. It follows Willie Quinton and his English cousin, Marianne, as they fall in love, and later, their daughter Imelda, who grows up among the ruins of the old family mill, where traces of past violence still linger.
Reasons to read Fools of Fortune
“Fools of Fortune” is a family tale of love, conflict, and revenge, set against the turbulent backdrop of the Irish War for Independence and the Irish Civil War. William Trevor was a renowned Irish novelist and short story writer. He received the Irish Literature Prize in 2001, the Irish PEN Award in 2002, a Lifetime Achievement Award in Irish Literature in 2008, and the International Nonino Prize in 2008. He won the Whitbread Prize (now called the Costa Book Award) three times: in 1994 for “Felicia’s Journey”, in 1983 for “Fools of Fortune”, and in 1976 for “The Children of Dynmouth”. In 1990, “Fools of Fortune” was adapted into a film of the same title.
Setting: Fermoy, County Cork (Ireland)
Original title: Fools of Fortune
Year of publication: 1983
Nr of pages: 224
