Anne Enright last night delivered her first US lecture as Laureate for Irish Fiction, An Irish Woman Abroad: Maeve Brennan Goes Mad In New York, at the Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House.
Enright, who is currently teaching creative writing at New York University, said, “When I flew to New York in February 2000 I thought my life could not get better: I was pregnant, I was bringing the proofs for my first New Yorker story in my bag, and I met Seamus Heaney on the plane. The next day I went to the offices of the magazine and paused in the ladies room to remember Maeve Brennan, and to consider the rumour that she lived for a while in the washroom of the old offices on West 43rd St. I have always been interested in what drives a writer mad. It was natural for me to think about Brennan while I was living in the city this year. I wanted to put her on the streets of New York, to write about place - but of course I wrote about madness instead. What is the difference between imagination and psychosis? And what made it impossible for Maeve Brennan, an Irish woman abroad, to be herself?”
Director of the Arts Council Orlaith McBride said, “When the Arts Council first imagined this position, the annual public lecture was central to our idea of what a laureate would be and will undoubtedly form a legacy.
“We kept the brief for the lectures loose, and for good reason. When a writer of Anne Enright’s calibre puts the force of her mind behind something, the outcome will be remarkable. Her lectures, her interviews, just a conversation with Anne: these force you to interrogate the world around you. They help you to see the world with new eyes. The Arts Council is immensely proud to showcase the brilliance of Irish writing internationally through the laureate, further building Ireland’s reputation as a country that nurtures and supports artists and creativity.”
The lecture will be repeated in Ireland in the second half of 2016 and will be published in May as the introduction to The Stinging Fly’s new edition of Maeve Brennan’s celebrated Dublin stories, The Springs of Affection.
Enright’s first Laureate for Irish Fiction Lecture, Antigone in Galway, was delivered in Dublin and in Cork last year and later published in the London Review of Books. A third lecture is planned for 2017. Information on all of the laureate’s events is available on the Arts Council’s website, artscouncil.ie/laureate
A Catholic Rising?
Owen Dudley Edwards, Honorary Fellow in American and Commonwealth History at the University of Edinburgh, will deliver the annual Le Chéile - Together Lecture entitled, How Catholic was the Easter Rising? at Lecture Theatre 3, St Mary’s University College, 191 Falls Road, Belfast, on Tuesday, May 10th, at 7.30 pm
The Long Gaze Back at NCH
Sinead Gleeson, editor of The Long Gaze Back, the bestselling anthology of short stories by Irish women writers, will explore the short story with three of the newer voices in the anthology – June Caldwell, Eimear Ryan and EM Reapy – in the National Concert Hall’s Kevin Barry Recital Room this Saturday, at 7.30pm. The authors will read and discuss their work, the Irish short story andmore. Tickets €15.
The Visual Time Traveller
The Visual Time Traveller, an exhibition and pop up shop, will take place from May 5th-15th in Fumbally Exchange, 5 Dame Lane, Dublin 2, launching at 6.30pm on May 5th, with daily talks at 1.15pm presented by the author and curator, Alison Hackett.
Cast your mind back to the first decade of the 16th Century. What is happening? Leonardo da Vinci is painting the Mona Lisa and Michelangelo chips away at his sculpture of David while, in Rome, a lunar eclipse is observed by Copernicus. On the southern Atlantic Ocean a Portuguese explorer, João da Nova, discovers the island of St Helena - the place where Napoleon will be exiled over two hundred years later.
Now visit the years between 1895 and 1900 and here find Bram Stoker busy writing Dracula while blood-thinning Aspirin is being invented. X-rays are discovered, The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde is first performed and Cézanne realizes the possibilities of modern art in his painting, The Bathers.
Re-ignite your inner curiosity with this graphically curated journey through history, art and science since the Renaissance. Dip inside and take off on your own historical journey. Browse with your intellect and fly with your imagination. A random walk through history in five-year time jumps. Invention, art, science and politics since the Renaissance is communicated by weaving over a thousand facts into a hundred specially commissioned graphic designs – eye candy and brain food in every one.
The Visual Time Traveller has been chosen to be part of the Global Irish Design Challenge 2015/2016, a celebration of Irish design innovation, which opens at the Coach House, Dublin Castle on June 15th.
Oliver Jeffers illustrates John Boyne classic
2016 marks the 10-year anniversary of the bestselling novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne. Fans and new readers will be treated to a beautiful hardback collector’s edition of the novel, illustrated by the awardwinning author and illustrator Oliver Jeffers.
John Boyne says: “I’m delighted that 10 years after the publication of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas the novel will find its way into the hands of a new generation of readers in this anniversary edition. I’m sure that they, like I, will be moved by the wonderful illustrations by my friend Oliver Jeffers. This is a project that Oliver and I have been discussing for many years and I couldn’t wish for a better partner in bringing the story to life once again.”
Oliver Jeffers says: “It was an incredible honour, and an intimidating challenge, to bring art to such a delicate and powerful book, that, at a decade old, already has such a presence in literary culture. I hope the books fans think I have done justice to John’s much loved work.”
Over seven million copies of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas have been sold around the world. It spent 66 weeks at the number one slot in Ireland, and was made into a successful film by Miramax.
Percy French in Belfast
Acknowledged as one of Ireland’s greatest songwriters, Percy French (1854 - 1920) is profiled in the Linen Hall exhibition Percy French: Poet, Painter, Performer starting on May 3rd.
