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Anne Enright

Irish novelist Anne Enright talks to John Wilson about her creative influences.

Irish novelist Anne Enright is the author of seven novels, including The Gathering, winner of the Booker Prize in 2007. Her 2012 novel The Forgotten Waltz won the Andre Carnegie Medal for Fiction and her novel The Green Road won The Irish Novel of the Year in 2015, the same year that she was appointed as the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction. Her latest novel The Wren, The Wren has been shortlisted for the Women鈥檚 Prize for Fiction 2024.

Anne tells John Wilson how her childhood home in the suburbs of Dublin, and holidays spent at the Pollock Holes in Kilkee inform her writing. She recalls her book-devouring household and first reading Ulysses while on a cycling holiday at the age of 14. The play Top Girls by Caryl Churchill was also a creative influence, particularly in the way Churchill wrote dialogue for women who were at the time, so underrepresented on stage. Anne also cites the influence of the writer Angela Carter, both as a writer of contemporary fiction and as her tutor and mentor at the University of East Anglia.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Archive and readings used:

Extract from The Gathering, read by Anne Enright
Extract from The Wren, The Wren, read by Charlotte Pyke
Extract from Top Girls by Caryl Churchill, 成人快手, 1992

Available now

43 minutes

Last on

Sat 11 May 2024 19:15

Broadcasts

  • Thu 9 May 2024 11:00
  • Sat 11 May 2024 19:15

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