Mike Murphy returns to RTE radio to present the new series, Reading the Future, featuring interviews with the 12 Irish writers chosen to have produced some of the most lasting writing of our time. E Radio 1 on Saturday, November 18th. An accompanying book is published by Lilliput Press (£12).
Earlier this year, a panel of 12 people, with chairman Declan Kiberd, set about choosing which writers they thought would still be read, performed and esteemed in 100 years. The panel comprised: Gemma Hussey, director of The European Women's Foundation; Neil Belton, publishing director of Granta Books; Stephen Rea, actor/director; Caroline Williams, currently editor of booksirish.com and who has worked as a theatre producer, editor and literary researcher; Dr Patricia Coughlan, associate professor in the Department of English, NUI Cork; Eileen Battersby, literary correspondent of The Irish Times; Niall MacMonagle, head of English, Wesley College, Dublin; Dr Terence Brown, professor of Anglo-Irish Literature in Trinity College and vice president of the International Association of Irish Literature; Fionnuala Hanrahan who was involved in the current National Initiative for Reading Campaign and the establishment of the Dublin Impac Literary Award; Dr Tony Roche, senior lecturer in English Literature and Drama, UCD; Cormac Kinsella, editor of the Waterstone's Guide to Irish Books and promoter for Repforce Ireland; Dr Robert Welch, professor of English at the University of Coleraine and editor of The Oxford Companion to English Literature.