When I read A Long Winter in March this year (a novella that had first been published in 2005), I had no idea that a sequel was in the works. The Bridge picks up the story of Miguel and his father who live in a remote part of the Pyrenees. They have sold their old farm and moved to the house to which Miguel’s mother had been returning the day she died. The opening of a new bridge is set to transform the isolated villages, opening them to the wider world for good or for ill.

The novella is written in the spare and elliptical style for which Colm Toibin is celebrated. There is hardly a wasted word. The desolation of Miguel’s life and his acceptance of his fate are brilliantly conveyed in a short novel that opens up worlds of experience and emotion. The Bridge is a remarkable achievement.