"Liadan Ní Chuinn was born in Northern Ireland in 1998, the year the Good Friday Agreement ended the Troubles, the decades of violence stemming from England's occupation of Ireland. Other recent fiction about the Troubles-the novels and Trespasses , the TV show Derry Girls (all excellent)-is set firmly in the last century, relegating the violence to history. Ní Chuinn's work does the opposite: Their new book of short stories, Every One Still Her e, is set in contemporary Northern Ireland."
"A Basque family in "Amalur" discusses oppression in Franco's Spain: "The language was banned, it was illegal to give your child a Basque name... they fined us for speaking it, our own language, in our own land, the government removed the language even from graves." The protagonist of "Russia" works at a museum that displays preserved bodies from ancient civilizations, which become the target of anonymous protest, including signs taped to display cases saying things like "I AM SOMEBODY'S CHILD.""
A collection of short stories is set in contemporary Northern Ireland and foregrounds the continuing effects of imperialism. The narratives extend beyond English-Irish violence to international examples of oppression, including a Basque family recalling Franco-era bans on language and names. A museum worker encounters protest over displayed preserved bodies labeled as somebody's child. Economic precarity appears through adult children forced to live at home, gig-work instability, and siblings emigrating to America and never returning. Each story centers on family relationships, from unaware Gen X parents to young adults orphaned amid unresolved trauma linked to the British Army. Infertility emerges as another source of familial pain.
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