Search results for ""author evelyn conlon""

‘Evelyn Conlon’s voice is instantly recognisable: wise, funny, insightful (inciteful, if that’s a word) and irrepressible.’ Lia Mills In Reading Rites, Evelyn Conlon brings her characteristic wit and keen intelligence to the task of exploring her writing life, drawing out the events, people, books and concerns that have helped to make her the writer she is. Using the lens of her own life as a starting point, she considers a vast array of subjects, including education; the effects of the Catholic Church, particularly on the lives of women; the legacy of historical moments such as 1916; and, through it all, the power of books to free us, to offer understanding, and to help us to see outside and beyond ourselves. Part memoir, part manifesto, Reading Rites is full of the sharp observation, restless questioning and hard-won wisdom that make Conlon one of Ireland’s finest and most compelling writers. ‘These essays amount to an alternative history of social change in Ireland … each one manages to keep faith with the truth of public speech.’ Sean O’Reilly

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This collection of eleven stories by one of Ireland’s best writers is a compelling exploration of what comes from moving about the place. In these stories, Evelyn Conlon vividly imagines her characters all over the world: Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Italy, Monaco, in a house with two drills of vegetables in Skerries. A couple spend their lives wandering around the equator because of a lie they told during anti-apartheid days; one person holds out in a border-straddling tree; a woman from Hiroshima makes the decision to get pregnant; an Irishwoman attempts to assassinate Mussolini, another fights for women's suffrage in Australia. Brilliantly written, witty, and full of the sharp observation for which Conlon is well known, Moving About the Place brings together some of the best of her recent work, along with brand-new stories, including a novella, to show how borders, movement and history change and transform people’s lives. ‘A genuinely exploratory writer … her work is excitingly original.’ The Times ‘Sharp sinuous writing, full of controlled anger and suddenly opened passion.’ The Scotsman

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The Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig celebrates a quarter of a century this year and marks this important milestone with the launch of a beautiful volume, ‘Annaghmakerrig‘. The Centre is an artists’ retreat set amid the lakes and drumlins of County Monaghan. An eclectic and varied list of poets, musicians, actors, directors and visual artists use the space to develop what we see on stages, pages and gallery walls throughout the country. The book is a collection and a collage that captures the essence and history of the centre, as well as the stories of its fascinating and somewhat eccentric families, not to mention the creativity of the five thousand artists who have spent time there since it was opened by Brian Friel in 1981. In the book. Eugene McCabe remembers Tony Guthrie the theatre director, while Joseph Hone provides a touching and powerful childhood memoir. Other contributors include Colm Toibin, John Banville, Gerald Barry, Anne Enright, Joseph O’Connor, Paul Muldoon, Patrick Scott, Alice Maher, Rosita Boland, Tim Robinson and Claire Keegan. The book is edited by SHEILA PRATSCHKE, Director of Annaghmakerrig, with works selected by RUAIRI O CUIV (visual art) and EVELYN CONLON (literature).

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