Sadbh's travels were all local this week. In a Dublin hotel, she ran into first-time novelist Zadie Smith, who is shortlisted for the £30,000 Orange Prize for her novel, White Teeth. This week, Smith won the book section prize of BT's annual Ethnic Multicultural Media Awards, which are known as the Emmas. Smith was here as part of a PR exercise from Penguin Books, which was presenting future titles to Irish booksellers. It was her first visit to Ireland but she was giving no interviews, and she was giving nothing away about her thoughts on being short-listed for the Orange: "When is the announcement of the winner? I haven't a clue!" she told Sadbh. Hmmm. As and if, are the words that come to mind. Anyway, if Zadie Smith is reading this, Sadbh can tell her June 6th is the date we'll know who has won the kudos and the £30,000.
Mairtin O Cadhain's classic work, Cre na Cille, has never been translated into English, for reasons which are not entirely clear to Sadbh, but which periodically excite much discussion among scholars. The hearsay goes that O Cadhain himself never wanted an English translation, and according to Marc Caball, director of the Ireland Literature Exchange, those seeking the rights for an English translation would have to apply for it through O Cadhain's estate, which is complex. Whatever the reasons, the fact is that there is no commercially published English translation of Cre na Cille available, although it is known that there is an unpublished PhD translation. However, if you read Danish, even if you don't read Irish, Cre na Cille need no longer be Greek to you. The Danish translation, Kirkegardsjord, has just been published by Husets Forlag in Aarhus, and has been attracting critical bouquets for translator Ole Munch-Pedersen. Danish national newspapers - Politiken, Information, and Weekendavisen - have compared O Cadhain to writers no less than Joyce and Beckett, so this is obviously a big publishing event in Denmark. How long will English-speakers have to wait for their translation?
AS June 16th looms, Bloomsday news is breaking out all over. "Go to bed with Molly Bloom!" is the cheeky head on a letter from Auckland. Auckland's Access Radio, 810AM, has decided to broadcast a five-hour reading from Ulysses, from midnight their local time, on Bloomsday. They reckon, due to the southern time zone, that this will make it the first Bloomsday celebration in the world. They explain thoughtfully: "For those of a prurient nature, the brothel sequence will be transmitted round about 2.30 a.m., and Molly Bloom's exciting thoughts sometime after 4 a.m.". So if you're going to be in Auckland, set your alarm clock accordingly. And is there a New Zealand connection with Joyce? Well, there is, according to the folk who sent Sadbh this letter. Joyce's sister, Margaret, became a nun and taught in a convent in Christchurch, where she is buried. The famous brother did correspond with his sister, the Sister, but none of these letters survives. They were allegedly destroyed after her death by the Mother Superior at the convent.
Books are introduced to the public in a number of venues - bookshops, cafes, out-of-doors, art galleries, university theatres, society rooms et al. On Thursday of this week, Gerard Dawe's Selected Essays, published by Abbey Press, got its introduction to the punters in Belfast at no less august a venue than the Long Gallery in Stormont. Thomas Kilroy was the guest speaker and the non-transferable, canary-yellow bookmark-type invitations doubled as access passes for Stormont, which would appear to be opening up to the general public.
Writing Irish: Selected Interviews with Irish writers from the Irish Literary Supplement, edited by James P. Myers jnr, and published by Syracuse University Press, has arrived on Sadbh's desk, still shrinkwrapped. Within are 16 question-and-answer format interviews with Irish writers by US academics. It's interesting to see how writers such as John McGahern, Paul Muldoon, Jennifer Johnston, Tom Paulin, John Banville, Derek Mahon and Hugh Leonard explained themselves and their work some 16 years ago, which is when the earliest interviews in this collection were published in the Irish Literary Supplement. Anyone interested in Irish Studies will find it immensely useful.
Sadbh hears that the Dingle Writing Courses, run by Nicholas McLachlan and Abigail Joffe, and now in their fifth year, have lost their grant from the Arts Council. This year, the residential writing courses are due to be facilitated by, among others, poet Mary O'Malley, novelist Mary Morrissy, and theatre director David Byrne. When Sadbh visited their informative and useful website, www.iol.ie/dinglewc, she was logged as the 2,581st visitor: no mean figure for a specialist cultural website. This year's programme is already scheduled, but uncertainty clouds next year's plans. Hopefully, funding will either have been restored by then or found from some other source.
Sadbh