ROLL up, roll up, to hear Michael Ondaatje, William Trevor and other winners of this year's Irish Times Literature Prizes. At the Irish Film Centre in Temple Bar, at 8 p.m. on Wednesday. Many of the shortlisted authors are also reading. Tickets are £5 from the IFC (tel: 01-679 3477).
The Oscar Wilde Centre at Trinity College is the venue for a discussion on the future of Black British Writing later this month. Jointly sponsored by the TCD School of English and the British Council, the seminar will be headed by Leone Ross, who is currently TCD's International Writer Fellow. The seminar aims to examine the place of multicultural literature in Britain today. There will be readings and discussions with three writers: Mike Phillips, Carol Russell and Leone Ross. "This is an opportunity for black British writers to share a unique literary perspective and experience," says Ross. The seminar, which is free and open to the public, is in the East End Theatre 3, Panoz Institute, Hamilton Building, TCD, at 7.30 p.m. on November 19th.
Sadbh has heard some good news about the Heinrich B÷ll cottage in Achill. B÷ll lived and worked in the Dugort cottage during the 1950s, and he describes it in his book, An Irish Diary. Since 1992, the cottage has been available to visiting writers and artists for residencies. Those who come also read or exhibit in the community at some point in their stay. The committee which co-runs the cottage, along with various state bodies and the B÷ll family, has just received a grant of £60,000 from the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht, and the Islands. This money will be used to help in the purchase of the cottage from the B÷ll family and to ensure the cottage's ongoing use as an established retreat for creative artists.
It's debatable whether one can commission or ask a poet to write a poem to a prescribed topic. We are not a land where a poet laureate reigns, after all. Sadbh is not sure about the merits of such wheezes. For one thing, it stymies originality, which has to be the watermark of any poem. However, sometimes it is the thought that counts, as they say. This week saw Ireland marking its contribution to the UN International Year of the Volunteer by way of five specially-written poems on the theme of volunteering. The poets are Rita Ann Higgins, Dennis O'Driscoll, Louis De Paor, Maighread Medbh, and David Maybury. The poems will be printed on cards designed by Brian Cronin, and distributed to public sector and government offices, both in the State and beyond, to promote awareness of volunteering. The poems were read for the first time at a reception in Dublin Castle earlier this week.
Good news: there will be a repeat run of the recent "Poets for Afghanistan", event for the Afghan refugees. The previous readings raised £800 for Concern. Any poet who'd like to read a poem is welcome to go along to the Winding Stair bookshop in Dublin tomorrow between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. Listeners, of course, also welcome.
The publishing company behind the book which aroused such public interest and media controversy last week, The Irish Soul: In Dialogue, edited by Stephen Costello, is only two months old. Those involved in the Liffey Press wrote to Sadbh this week to explain the aims of their company. "The Liffey Press, unlike many Irish publishers, intend to focus on the 21st century rather than the 19th or 20th," they say, a tad loftily. "Our primary goal is to publish books on Irish culture, politics, social policy, education, economics, and other areas to provide enlightening and insightful views on today's rapidly changing Ireland." Their publisher is David Givens, with Brian Langan as senior editor.
In addition to The Irish Soul, Liffey has also published Changed Utterly: Ireland and the New Irish Psyche, by Michael O'Connell. Forthcoming titles include Basic Income in Ireland, by Charles Clark; and a 'Contemporary Irish Writers and Filmmakers' series, whose series editor is Eugene O'Brien. If these successive books receive even half the attention which The Irish Soul managed to capture, Liffey will certainly have arrived on the scene in style.
It would be little surprise, and particularly apt, if Irish publishers A. & A. Farmar raised a glass of champagne when they heard the news that their excellent The Wine Guide 2002 - The Best of Wine in Ireland had won the Gourmand-World Cookbook Award for best wine guide in English. Now in its seventh edition, the book, edited by Barbara Boyle and Pat Carroll, emerged victorious from a shortlist which included Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book 2002, The Penguin Good Australian Wine Guide and Don't Buy Wine Without Me - The Best Australian Wines Under $20. The book will now compete with wine guides in other languages for the coveted title of World Cookbook Wine Guide of the Year.