All Down Darkness Wide

About the book

A luminous memoir from the prize-winning poet - a story of love, heartbreak and coming of age, and a tender exploration of queer identity.

'Beautiful' Colm Tóibín
'Rapturous' New York Times
'Extraordinary' Observer
'Stunning' Sunday Times

When Seán meets Elias, the two fall headlong into a love story. But as Elias struggles with severe depression, the couple comes face to face with crisis.

Wrestling with this, Seán Hewitt delves deep into his own history, enlisting the ghosts of queer figures and poets before him. From a nineteenth-century cemetery in Liverpool to the pine forests of Gothenburg, Hewitt plumbs the darkness in search of solace and hope.

All Down Darkness Wide is a mesmerising story of heartache and renewal, and a fearless exploration of a world that too often sets happiness and queer life at odds.

WINNER OF THE ROONEY PRIZE FOR IRISH LITERATURE 2022

'Extraordinarily beautiful... the best new work of non-fiction I've read in years' Sarah Perry

'Rigorous and sensual... Hewitt has forged a life-enhancing memoir' Spectator