Join Molly Aitken and Yasmina Floyer as they discuss Molly’s blazing tale of power, patriarchy and sexuality, which is based on the first European woman to be condemned as a witch. 

Thirteenth-century Ireland, a woman with power is a woman to be feared.

When a young Alice Kyteler sees her mother wither under the constraints of family responsibilities, she vows that she will not suffer the same fate. When she discovers she has a flair for making money, she soon builds a flourishing trade. But as her wealth and stature grow, so too do the rumours about her private life. By the time she has moved on to her fourth husband, a blaze of local gossip and resentment culminates in an accusation that could prove fatal.

Inspired by the first recorded person in Ireland to have been condemned as a witch, Bright I Burn gives voice to a woman lost to history, who dared to carve her own space in a man’s world.

Molly Aitken was born in Scotland in 1991 and brought up in Ireland. Her writing is inspired by the wild coasts and rolling hills of the country she loves. Her short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares and Banshee, and has been dramatised for BBC Radio 4. Her debut, The Island Child, was longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award. She is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam with an interest in recreating the voices of women who are silent in the archive.