Author Name
Author Name
LITERARY, FILM & TV AGENCY
MARIANNE GUNN O'CONNOR
Catherine Prasifka
Catherine Prasifka
Catherine Prasifka is a young writer from Dublin. She has a BA in English Literature from Trinity College and an MLitt in Fantasy Literature from the University of Glasgow.
She has taught popular fiction at the Centre For Talented Youth Ireland, and volunteered with Fighting Words, a creative writing centre for young people. She currently works as a creative writing teacher at St. Conleth’s College, Dublin.
Catherine’s debut adult novel, None of This is Serious was acquired by Canongate’s Assistant editor Megan Reid and C.E.O. Jamie Byng.
The story reflects the reality of how young people live and communicate today. Catherine describes it as novel about many things, but ultimately, it’s about insecurity. Specifically, the type of insecurity that has taken hold of her generation: insecurity about the economy, climate, friendship and themselves.
She said: “I started writing None of This Is Serious before the pandemic, but it came alive during those endless lockdown days. I wanted the book to accurately represent what it means to be young right now, in an online world where reality is both elastic and malleable, when suddenly I became a spectator to a global event that forced me to rethink everything. The last year and a half have been unprecedented; I could never have predicted a global pandemic, but it seems equally improbable that I could have ended up where I am now, with such a supportive team at Canongate behind me and the book.”
Canongate who acquired world rights, excluding North America, call None of This Is Serious 'utterly compelling' and published it as their lead debut in April 2022.
Catherine’s second novel This Is How You Remember It, published by Canongate in May 2024 to rave reviews, gives us a cautionary tale of how the modern digital age of posts, likes and sharing can wreak havoc on a woman's life.
Praise for None Of This Is Serious
"An extraordinary novel. None of This Is Serious brilliantly explores the impossibility to "come of age" in end times, where screens are so contiguous to experience that no-one is ever truly online or offline. She writes truthfully and with affectless nuance about the labyrinthine workings of friend groups and the defences women scramble for in a world that still hates us"
Naoise Dolan, Author of Exciting Times
"I inhaled None of This Is Serious. I've been waiting for a fictional story that reflects the all-consuming influence that the Internet has on my life. None of This Is Serious is that story. A compulsively readable, fresh and painfully accurate description of the way we live now. Don't let the title fool you. It is serious. Seriously good"
Louise Nealon, Author of Snowflake
"Edgy . . . [Prasifka] has a painfully raw and acute gift for catching the way things are"
Sunday Times
"I absolutely LOVED this novel. Beautifully crafted"
Emma Gannon, Author of Olive
"None of This Is Serious is brilliant - so devastatingly precise about being a young woman living in Ireland and online today, moving deftly between sharp, hilarious observations and heartbreaking, enraging moments"
Claire Hennessy, Author of Like Other Girls
"None of This Is Serious is such a compelling novel, and Sophie is such a relatable character - reading her story felt like one of those meaningful and immersive conversations you can only have with a stranger at 3am in the toilets of a dingy club, all hearts laid bare. At times agonisingly close to the bone, Catherine Prasifka's debut novel is an exquisitely unnerving portrayal of who we are and how we live"
Katie Hale, Author of My Name Is Monster
"A stunning, searing vision of modern neurosis and female experience in the online age, with characters so boldly done they jump out of the page and follow you around the room. You'll come away from it punch-drunk and staggered"
J.R. Thorp, Author of Learwife
"A beautifully written original take on how we're all guilty of taking refuge online as the world around us becomes increasingly confusing"
Stylist, Fiction Books You Can't Miss in 2022
"As we adapt to our increasingly online lives, Catherine Prasifka's debut is the antidote we never knew we needed. We meet Sophie, Prasifka's ultra-relatable protagonist, at a precarious time in her life: leaving university. What happens next is a worthy reminder that Instagram /= reality"
Glamour, Best Books of 2022
Praise for This Is How You Remember It
'If only my mother and I had this book to hand all those years ago. It is an essential document. I wish it wasn’t. I’m so glad it exists”
The Guardian
“a potent time capsule, a depiction of millennials as a lost generation, the last of the internet pre-natives.. .[A] powerful cautionary tale"
The Irish Independent
“A coming-of-age story written with the oppressive propulsion of a thriller”
Sunday Telegraph
“Prasifka has a painfully raw and acute gift for catching the way things are”
Sunday Times
“Prasifka does not pull her punches”
Herald
‘Humane, powerful, compassionate and unsparing, this is a book for our times’
Rosemary Hennigan
“Beautifully written, intense, intimate and impactful. A unique and important novel with a strong and vital purpose, which has stayed with me long after I turned the last page”
Anya Bergman
“Smart, insightful and compassionate. A gorgeous book with both brains and heart”
Claire Hennessy
"A powerful exploration of sex and sexuality and porn and relationships and love and friendship . . . Unnerving and strangely comforting in equal measure"
Louise O’Neill
"Punchy"
Mail on Sunday
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/catherine-prasifkas-masters-stroke-of-a-debut-9lv90pzj8
Catherine Prasifka’s discusses This Is How You Remember It on the Oliver Callan show RTE Radio 1
