Dublin Writers Festival ‘08

I was in the Merrion Hotel last night for the launch of this year’s Dublin Writers Festival, which runs from 11-15 June.

An excellent programme has been planned by Liam Browne. The decision to team Irish writers with foreign writers will make for some interesting events – Glenn Patterson will be reading with Canadian writer Wayne Johnston, Hugo Hamilton with Justin Cartwright, Sebastian Barry with Jonathan Coe, Anne Enright with Tobias Wolff and I’ll be reading with New Zealand novelist Lloyd Jones, which I’m very much looking forward to as I was a huge fan of ‘Mr Pip’.

The full programme and tickets for the festival can be purchased on the festival website.

April Reading

As I’m not doing very much work at the moment, other than moving house that is, I got a chance to do a lot of reading this month. I’ve been working my way through the novels of Richard Yates ever since the good people at Vintage Classics decided to reissue all his books at monthly intervals and this month I read Young Hearts Crying and The Easter Parade, both of which served to fill out this Yatesian world that I’ve been living in for the last few months. There’s nothing quite like reading all a writer’s novels in a short space of time, from start to finish, to get a sense of who they are and why they write. So many of the unhappy people in Yates’ books are stuck in loveless marriages (brought on by marrying too early), boring jobs, unhappy families. Most of them start off sensibly enough and end their lives as raging alcoholics. There’s a lot of aspiring writers in there too – mostly poets – who have early successes and then can never seem to locate their voice again. The stories are very moving and put me in mind of things like Updike’s Rabbit novels or some of Philip Roth’s novels of the late ‘70s. It’s a shame that Richard Yates never received the attention he deserved in his lifetime; it looks like he’s getting it now though. A film of Revolutionary Road is due at the end of the year and Vintage’s continuing publishing programme is to be commended.

 

Four first novels were also on my reading list this month. Phil Lamarche’s American Youth and Keith Gessen’s All The Sad Young Literary Men; Ross Raisin’s God’s Own Country, which is an extraordinary debut, narrated by a troubled young Yorkshire farmer and which is deserving of major attention, and Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (I was halfway through it when it won the Pulitzer), which is an absolute delight, absolutely brimming over with energy, honest story-telling, humour and passion. Diaz’s various narrators are terrific; the book feels to me like a can of something fizzy, shaken up and the cap screwed off; it just explodes everywhere.

 

Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture was another rewarding read. Yes, he’s Irish, no need to point that out, but that’s not my reason why. Picking up on some of the characters from his earlier book The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty, Barry tells two stories here, that of a very old woman who has spent most of her life in a “lunatic asylum” and the English doctor who takes a sudden interest in her story when the hospital is to be closed and the patients relocated. Filled with the prejudices and nastiness and religious hypocricy that defined my country for many years, I read this book in one long day of reading, unable to put it down.

 

Finally, I took Nick Hornby’s Slam with me to Barcelona and enjoyed it immensely. The novel’s youthful narrator, Sam, is a lot more thoughtful and considered than many teenagers in fiction and his story is humorous and moving and always suprising. Hornby is, for my money, a very underrated novelist. He tells stories brilliantly and – as is clear from his Polysyllabic Spree articles – he has a wonderful wit which jumps off the page.

 

 

My book of the month for April: Ross Raisin’s GOD’S OWN COUNTRY

Irish Book Awards

The Mansion House – the Dublin Lord Mayor’s residence – was the venue for last night’s Irish Book Awards, a very enjoyable night for everyone involved in publishing in Ireland. The evening moved along at a brisk pace with awards going to Diarmaid Ferriter for Judging Dev, Roddy Doyle for Wilderness and Anne Enright for The Gathering amongst other winners. I’m a member of the Irish Literary Academy and some – but not all – of the books I voted for won. I won’t say which ones…! The shortlist for the Irish Novel of the Year was particularly impressive – Enright, John Banville, Ronan Bennett and Joe O’Connor’s wonderful Redemption Falls were all up for the main prize. The quality of all these books clearly proves that Irish writers are the best writers in the world, right?!! The picture shows me in conversation with fellow author Anthony Horowitz.

Qué Leer Award 2007

With Juan José Millas, who won the Best Spanish Language Novel at the Qué Leer Awards.

Barcelona

I spent the last three days in Barcelona, my first visit to Spain and definitely not my last. The main focus of the trip was to attend the Qué Leer Awards party, where the Spanish language version of BOY, EL NINO CON EL PIJAMA DE RAYAS, was awarded the prize for the Best Translated novel of the year.

The novel has been a tremendous success in Spain, selling over 800,000 copies so far, and a celebratory lunch with my Spanish publisher, Salamandra, on Monday made a very pleasant start to the trip, so many thanks to Pedro, Sigrid and Alix for all their hospitality. Later that afternoon, there was a television interview for Pagina 2 which meant I had to be made up for the cameras, something I never enjoy. (Here’s a tip if you’re ever going on television – always wear long sleeves or your arms will be made up too!)

Tuesday was filled with interviews. I went to the rooftop terrace of my hotel – the view seen from the photo that accompanies this entry – at 9 in the morning and sat there while journalists from all the major Spanish and Catalan newspapers and magazines came by for 45 minute interview sessions. I think there was 8 or 9 in total, one after the other, so by the late afternoon I was tired of talking about myself and grateful for a relaxing lunch with Eugenia and Nurya from my Catalan publishers, Editorial Empuries.

Tuesday night was the Qué Leer party, attended by perhaps 500-600 people, a wonderful extravaganza in a Barcelona hotel where I was presented with a beautiful piece of sculpture as my prize. Photos of this and the ceremony will be posted here over the next day or two.

The trip ended this morning with a farcical situation where a taxi driver collected me from my hotel to take me to the airport, only he wasn’t the right taxi driver, the one who was booked I mean, and demanded payment when we reached the airport. Standing outside his taxi, insisting that he had been paid in advance, we reached an impasse, which was only solved when he decided to get back in his cab and drive off with my suitcase in the boot, which left me running after him, waving my arms frantically in the air in an attempt to get him to stop. Not the best spectacle. Anyway all was solved in the end, my bags and I were reunited, the taxi driver got his money (I gave in), and soon I was winging my way back to Dublin for an early night, for another big night to come tomorrow…

Human Rights Stories

More on the 30 articles of the UN Declaration of Human Rights that 30 Irish writers are, week by week, responding to. I’ve just realised that if you don’t live in Ireland or don’t have access to the Irish Times every Saturday, you can catch up with all the stories at your leisure on Amnesty’s Irish site here.

Franco-Irish Literary Festival

I spent all of yesterday in Dublin Castle, attending the 9th (or possibly 10th) Franco-Irish Literary Festival. Strangely enough, despite having lived in Dublin most of my life, and having spent a couple of years living up the road from the castle, I hadn’t been inside it since I was a child. Still, all rectified now.

The day was a great success and I took part in two sessions, one with a group of French and German writers and one other Irish writer (Anne Enright) and the second in an international consortium of writers who all, coincidentally, were born the same year – Nicolas Fargues from France, Jan Costin Wagner from Germany and Juan Gabriel Vasquez from Colombia. And me, of course. From Ireland.

The problem with festivals is that just as the talk is getting good, the hour is up and off we must go to be replaced by the next group of jetlagged novelists. Still, it’s always a good opportunity to meet and hear other writers talk about their books. And to buy some books, of course. I bought too many, like I always do. But as I’ll be travelling over the next few days it will give me an opportunity to read them.

Thanks to all who were involved in this year’s festival and everyone who came along to listen – it was a highly enjoyable day.

Movie News

If you’re going to be at the Hay Literary Festival on Sunday 25th May, book now for tickets to a special event where scenes from the film adaptation of THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS will be shown, followed by an interview/Q&A with myself and the film’s director, Mark Herman. The picture published here was taken on set in Budapest last year – many more will be available online as we get closer to release date. International dates are to be confirmed soon but if you’re in the UK or Ireland, the film goes on nationwide release on Friday September 12th.

Dundalk – One City One Book

A note of thanks to all who came out to Hughes & Hughes bookstore in Dundalk last night to attend the launch of the ‘One City One Book’ promotion which aims to get as many people in possible all reading and discussing one book, in this case THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS.

Conor McAteer, whose idea it was, and Ellie Winters from Hughes & Hughes put on a great night and it was exciting to answer questions for such a large audience. To my surprise I learned that a Striped Pyjamas float had been part of this year’s St Patrick’s Day parade in Dundalk – I don’t have any photos of it yet but hopefully I will soon!

A state of flux

I started this journal - I’m sorry, I can’t bring myself to use the “B” word - due to the number of letters and emails and carrier pigeons that come my way, sent by people who seem interested in my writing and what it is that a writer does. But I’m still trying to figure out exactly how to focus it. On publishing matters, or readings, or personal trivia. It’s hard to know. I think I’ll continue along and see where it goes.

I find myself in a state of flux at the moment due to a number of things. First, my new (and sixth) novel, Mutiny On The Bounty, is due to be published in a month’s time, so it’s preying on mind. Second, I’ve recently handed my next (and seventh) novel across to my agent, who gave it a hearty thumbs-up, and now it’s gone to my editor, who all going well is reading it as I write. And third, we’re moving house in a few weeks, so I don’t feel that home is really home anymore.

About now, I usually start thinking about the next novel, since I seem to be on a one-a-year output at the moment. (Well, why not, after all. Philip Roth can do it. Woody Allen can do it.) And I think I have just about decided what the next novel will be. But I can’t start writing it. Not until the house move is completed, that is. And I’m in my new study. It just wouldn’t be right to start in one place and continue in another. Not for me, anyway.

It makes me feel very unsettled.