Louise Kennedy talks to Chris Power

Debut novel Trespasses, set in 1970s Belfast, is an intimate portrait of those caught between the warring realms of the personal and political, rooted in a turbulent and brutal moment of history.

Cushla Lavery lives with her mother in a small town near Belfast, and works as a teacher. The daily news rolls in of another car bomb exploding, another man shot, killed, beaten or left for dead. Then she meets Michael Agnew, an older (and married) barrister who draws her into his sophisticated group of friends. As her affair with Michael intensifies, political tensions in the town escalate, threatening to destroy all she is working to hold together.