X + Y = K is the final, astonishing work by the late Ciaran Carson – an electrifying fusion of memoir, ghost story, and speculative fiction that pushes his lifelong preoccupations with memory, time, and perception into audacious new territory. Moving between Belfast and London, the novel traces the fractured consciousness of Kilpatrick, a man haunted by migraine visions, childhood trauma, and the spectral machinery of history. As séances, scientific experiments, and art-historical meditations bleed into one another, the boundaries between worlds grow porous: tables levitate, cities shimmer like palimpsests, and the dead return in flickers of light.
Carson’s trademark blend of forensic detail and lyrical expansiveness animates a narrative where parallel realities overlap, where surveillance and spiritualism mirror each other, and where every object – painting, watch, typewriter – carries its hidden aura. A profound meditation on vulnerability, doubleness, and the stories we invent to survive, X + Y = K is Carson’s final, radiant act of imagination.
About the Author :
Ciaran Carson (1948–2019) was a Belfast-born poet, prose writer, translator, and traditional musician. He worked for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland before becoming Professor of Poetry and founding Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast. His fourteen poetry collections, including The Irish for No, Belfast Confetti, First Language and Breaking News, won major awards, as did his translations of The Inferno and The Táin. His acclaimed prose includes Last Night’s Fun, The Star Factory, Shamrock Tea and The Pen Friend. Ciaran Carson died at his home in Belfast on 6 October 2019.
