#24 John Banville Fades To Black
City of Books
John Banville, who has killed off his own Benjamin Black pen name, is disturbed by explicit depictions of violence in popular culture.
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#23 Neil Jordan and the Runaway Slave
City of Books
Oscar-winning filmmaker Neil Jordan runs parallel careers as a director and novelist, and his latest book is his most cinematic.
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#22 Danielle McLaughlin Finding Herself
City of Books
“As someone prone to get lost in the darker currents of my own head I’ve found it healthier to get lost in a book,” says Danielle McLaughlin.
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#21 Louise O'Neill on Why She's a Warrior not a Princess
City of Books
“The number 63 has come up for me time and time again in very strange ways,” says writer Louise O’Neill. “I have put it in each of my books."
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#20 Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin's Poetic Licence Earned
City of Books
Poet Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin talks about a time when books were banned in Ireland.
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#19 Anne Enright on an Altered Ireland
City of Books
“I don’t know if Ireland is the same any more,” says Booker Prize winner and former Laureate for Irish Fiction Anne Enright.
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#18 Many Strings to de Bernières's Mandolin
City of Books
Louis de Bernières is known worldwide as the author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin - but at nineteen, teaching in Colombia, he was known for something else. Dancing like a chicken.
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#17 Haunted By The Ghost
City of Books
In her first podcast interview since winning the An Post Irish Book of the Year award for 2020, Doireann Ní Ghríofa describes how she shares her life with a famous 18th century widow.
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#16 Eoin McNamee's Hidden Histories
City of Books
Eoin McNamee blurs fact and fiction to produce art, whether exploring secret intelligence agencies or speculating on why Princess Diana died in a high speed car accident.
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#15 How Emma Donoghue Won an Oscar
City of Books
Writer Emma Donoghue us how she wrote an Oscar-nominated script working with director Lenny Abrahamson on 'Room'.
info_outlineWriter Eoin McNamee blurs fact and fiction to produce art, whether exploring the activities of secret intelligence agencies or speculating on why Princess Diana died in a high speed car accident.
His 17 novels are gritty and poetic – beautifully written noir – and have earned him a Booker nomination. But they sometimes attract criticism for being near the knuckle, although he sees that as their function, he tells podcast host Martina Devlin.
He also writes episodes for Valhalla, the Vikings spinoff for Netflix.
His most recent novel, The Vogue, is set in Northern Ireland where a corpse is dug up, and other secrets uncovered along with it. “Writing should be transgressive," he says.
The Vogue is published by Faber. More info here:
City of Books is funded by the Arts Council and supported by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and the Museum of Literature Ireland