Books

Maeve Binchy and Imagine Arts festivals; Vive Jan Carson!; Backlisted in Galway

A round-up of the latest literary news and preview of Saturday's books pages

Maeve Binchy at home in Dalkey. Photograph: Crispin Rodwell

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Martin Doyle
Thu Sep 9 2021 - 09:50

Saturday’s reviews in The Irish Times are Lucy McDiarmid on A History of Irish Women’s Poetry, edited by Ailbhe Darcy and David Wheatley, and Romantic-Era Irish Women Poets in English, edited by Stephen Berendt; Declan Burke on the best new crime fiction; Neil Hegarty on The Sisters Mao by Gavin McCrea; John Self on four titles on the Booker longlist; Kit de Waal on Nanny, Ma and Me by Kathleen, Dominique and Jade Jordan; Emma Flynn on Songbirds by Christy Lefteri; Naoise Dolan on Misfits: A Personal Manifesto by Michaela Coel; and Kevin Power on Freight Dogs by Giles Foden.

Jan Carson has been longlisted for two major French literary prizes for the French translation of her novel The Fire Starters.  Les lanceurs de feu, translated by Dominique Goy-Blanquet and published by Sabine Wespieser, has been nominated for both the Prix Femina and the Prix Medicis. Chapeau!

If you have not read it yet - quelle honte! - this 2019 interview with Anna Carey should inspire a spot of rattrapage.

Jan Carson: “That’s what intrigued me, that there is a line there between what’s real and believable.”Photograph: Alan Betson

Echoes, the Maeve Binchy & Irish Writers Festival, is to take place from October 1st till 3rd at Dalkey Castle & Heritage Centre, with this year’s theme, This Year It Will Be Different, taking its title from the short story collection she published in 1995.

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The festival begins on October 1st, at 7.30pm, with Binchy’s hilarious Aches and Pains, adapted by Shay Linehan.

On Saturday 2nd, from 9.30am-5pm, there will be a day of talks, discussions and readings featuring: Chris Binchy, Gillian Binchy, Rosita Boland, Turtle Bunbury, Anna Carey, Sinéad Crowley, Rachel English, Ruth Fitzmaurice, Patrick Freyne, Sarah Gilmartin, Sarah Maria Griffin, Neil Hegarty, Rónán Hession, Caelainn Hogan, Róisín Ingle, Kathleen MacMahon, Dr Phil Mullen, Deirdre O’Kane and Gordon Snell.

On Sunday 3rd, there will be a guided walk from Dalkey Castle at 11am.

At 10.30am is Read the Wave, when Ruth Fitzmaurice, author of I Found My Tribe, leads the first ECHOES sea swim! at Vico Baths, Vico Road. Full programme and booking at echoes.ie / Booking fees apply.

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Waterford’s Imagine Arts Festival is set to host a hybrid program of online and live indoor and outdoor events across the City from October 15th to 24th.

The festival showcases a multi-disciplinary range of arts events which also includes Waterford Writers Weekend; some of the big-name authors lined up include Waterford native and one of 2021’s most celebrated debuts, Megan Nolan, who will read from Acts of Desperation and speak about the process of writing her second novel. Writer and podcaster Sophie White will speak about her bestselling essay collection, Corpsing: My Body and Other Horror Shows. The Observer columnist Séamas O’Reilly will be discussing his memoir Did Ye Hear Mammy Died and the author of Leonard and Hungry Paul Rónán Hession will be discussing his latest release Panenka.

The festival’s visual art listing will feature exhibitions from renowned artist John Shinnors to Surf Board Art. The performing arts sector will have a variety of spots from dance to theatre to a host of live music acts, comedy and more.

For details and tickets see Imagineartsfestival.com

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Backlisted, the fortnightly books podcast that seeks to give new life to old books, is to record its first live episode in Ireland at the Galway International Festival on Friday, September 10th at 6pm with novelist Mary Costello (Academy Street and The River Capture). The book she will be discussing is Elizabeth Costello, a 2003 novel by South African/Australian Nobel laureate JM Coetzee.

The hosts are both former booksellers: John Mitchinson, co-founder of crowd-funding publisher Unbound and former head of research for QI, and Andy Miller, author of The Year of Reading Dangerously. Recent episodes have had markedly Irish flavour: in June, Patrick McCabe talked about Dermot Healy’s classic, A Goat’s Song, followed by Caroline O’Donoghue on Nuala O’Faolain’s bestselling 1996 memoir, Are You Somebody?

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Author Louise O’Neill is moving to Transworld from Quercus in a six-figure deal following a five-way auction for her next two novels, the Bookseller has reported.

Publishing director Frankie Gray bought rights to Idol and a second book from O'Neill's agent Juliet Mushens. It will be a lead publication for Transworld in spring 2022, and will publish through its Bantam Press imprint.  The publisher said Idol explores the world of online influencers and our relationship with our heroes.

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Renowned storyteller Niall de Búrca has been commissioned by Glór Ennis for a nine-venue costal tour for families from the tip to the tail of the west coast. Starting on September 23rd in glór, de Búrca will be spinning tales inspired by one of the world’s most unique and mighty landscapes…The Wild Atlantic Way. Raised in the west of Ireland, Niall soaked up the vivid myths and legends of the coast. He loved tales of chieftains, heroines and hags. Of bowsies, banshee’s and brave fisherfolk who worked the stormy seas. With a head full of these stories and tales of his own, Niall has travelled the roads of the world for over 25 years.