Midwinter: A Journey Through a Season

 

Michael Harding’s new book is a quietly powerful meditation on winter, loss, love, and renewal, weaving lyrical prose with tender reflections on age, death, and the cyclical nature of life.

 

Sitting by a flickering fire on frosty nights, Harding traces the emotional landscape of winter—from rain-soaked November to the frozen stillness of December and the gradual thaw of January—using the season as a metaphor for the human experience, where even in darkness the first stirrings of hope persist.

 

Blending memoir, fiction, and poetic meditation, Harding introduces Martin, a character whose grief and resilience echo the private heartbreaks so many endure, while stylistically drawing on Asian forms like haibun and zuihitsu to create a work that feels intimate, impressionistic, and profoundly human.

 

Critics have called Midwinter “keenly observed” and “unbearably honest,” praising its ability to capture the damp, decaying beauty of the Irish winter while offering readers a space for contemplation and gentle renewal. Ultimately, Midwinter stands as a testament to Harding’s evolution as a writer—moving beyond memoir into something deeper and more elemental—inviting us to sit with the stillness, confront the shadows, and find in the quiet of winter the faint but persistent promise of light.

 

Praise for Michael Harding
‘Absorbing and graced with a deceptive lightness of touch …
Harding writes like an angel’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘Hilarious, and tender, and mad, and harrowing, and wistful,
and always beautifully written’ KEVIN BARRY

‘An edifying journey of self-discovery’
IRISH MAIL ON SUNDAY