Blogs

The latest DCLA podcast is the second part of "Selected Shorts", a discussion with authors Eilís Ní Dhuibhne, Lia Mills, Christine Dwyer Hickey and Anne Devlin, chaired by Catherine Dunne.The conversation explores whether the short story is a naturally introspective and self-reflective genre, and questions whether the form, described by Mary Lavin's as an "owl in flight", or "a slide under the microscope", has opened up or altered under the influence of television, poetry and film. If you haven’t already, we suggest listening to part one first, where you will hear actors Rose Henderson, Susie Lamb, Katie O'Kelly and Geraldine Plunkett perform readings by these four authors.Recorded at the New Theatre on Saturday 7 April 2018.This interesting discussion examines whether the short story is a naturally introspective and self-reflective genre, and questions whether the form, described by Mary Lavin's as an "owl in flight", or "a slide under the microscope", has opened up or altered under the influence of television, poetry and film. Éilís Ní Dhuibhne is a novelist, critic and folklore scholar. Among her novels are Cailíni Beaga Ghleann na mBlath, The Dancers Dancing, and Fox, Swallow Scarecrow.Lia Mills writes novels (Another Alice, Nothing Simple, and Fallen, which was the Dublin: One City One Book title for 2016) short stories and essays. Christine Dwyer Hickey is a novelist, playwright and short story writer. Her works include the novels Tatty, Last Train from Liguria, The Cold Eye of Heaven and The Narrow Land and the short story collection Parkgate Street and other Dublin StoriesAnne Devlin is a playwright and short story writer. Her works include The Waypaver Ourselves Alone (Royal Court, 1985) and After Easter (Royal Shakespeare Company, 1993) and the radio play The Forgotten (2009).You can subscribe to the Dublin City Libraries and Archives podcast on Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This season is based on recordings from the 2018 Dublin: One City, One Book events. Dublin: One City, One Book is an award-winning Dublin City Council initiative, led by Dublin City Libraries and Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, that encourages everyone to read a particular book during the month of April every year. 2018's choice was 'The Long Gaze Back' which you can read on Borrowbox and of course you can order it from your favourite bookshop.The Dublin: One City, One Book for 2020 is Tatty by Christine Dwyer Hickey, available electronically on our BorrowBox app and from your favourite bookseller.Finally if you’re interested in podcasts why not check out the Dublin Festival of History podcast which features recordings from the free annual event and the new City of Books podcast with Martina Devlin, the podcast for people who believe stories matter. And that you can never have too many books.

On the evening of Thursday, 22 June, literary award winners José Eduardo Agualusa and Daniel Hahn gave a reading, followed by a Q&A session, introduced and moderated by Sinéad Crowley, in Dublin City Library & Archive, Pearse Street. Author José Eduardo Agualusa and translator Daniel Hahn were announced as winners of the 2017 International DUBLIN Literary Award for Agualusa's novel A General Theory of Oblivion at a ceremony in Dublin’s Mansion House on Wednesday, 21 June 2017.Listen to the reading and interview [play time: 53:46 minutes]: A General Theory of Oblivion tells the story of Ludo, who on the eve of Angolan independence, bricks herself into her apartment, where she will remain for the next thirty years. She lives off vegetables and pigeons, burns her furniture and books to stay alive and keeps herself busy by writing her story on the walls of her home.The outside world slowly seeps into Ludo’s life through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of a man fleeing his pursuers and a note attached to a bird’s foot. Until one day she meets Sabalu, a young boy from the street who climbs up to her terrace.A General Theory of Oblivion is available to borrow from Dublin City Public Libraries.The International Dublin Literary Award is sponsored by Dublin City Council and managed by Dublin City Public Libraries.Thank-you for listening to the Dublin City Public Libraries and Archive Podcast. To hear more, please subscribe on iTunes or SoundCloud. You can also visit our website - dublincitypubliclibraries.ie and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

On the evening of Friday, 10 June, literary award winner Akhil Sharma gave a reading, followed by a Q&A session, introduced and moderated by Niall MacMonagle,  in Dublin City Library & Archive, Pearse Street. Sharma was announced the winner of the 2016 International DUBLIN Literary Award for his novel Family Life at a ceremony in Dublin’s Mansion House on Thursday, 9th June 2016.TranscriptListen to the reading and interview [play time: 48:56 minutes]: Family Life tells the story of eight-year-old Ajay, whose family move from Delhi to America in 1978. America to the Mishras is everything they could have imagined and more: life is extraordinary until tragedy strikes, leaving one brother severely brain-damaged and the other lost and virtually orphaned in a strange land. Ajay, the family’s younger son, prays to a God he envisions as Superman, longing to find his place amid the ruins of his family’s new life.Family Life is available to borrow from Dublin City Public Libraries.The International Dublin Literary Award is sponsored by Dublin City Council and managed by Dublin City Public Libraries.

To mark the occasion of Colum McCann winning the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award with his book Let the Great World Spin, Pearse Street library played host to a reading by Colum McCann and a question and answer session between Niall MacMonagle and the author.(Photo: Jason Clark Photography)In this fascinating session Colum talks about his personal experience of 911, and how he chose to confront it obliquely in his writing, rather than head on as Roth and DeLillo chose to do. He discusses the process of developing and managing the many characters, voices and narrative strands of Let the Great World Spin.  The conversation then turns to the issues of identity and place and a familiar motif in Irish writing, the writer leaving home to live and write abroad.Listen to Colum and Niall's interesting conversation, followed by Colum reading from his winning novel.Colum McCann Reading and Q&A TranscriptHere is a taster of what he had to say:Niall: Early in the book the charismatic, mysterious John Andrew Corrigan we’re told his theme was happiness, what’s your theme?Colum: I think my theme would be the possibility of grace in the face of all the other evidence that we see. The possibility of some sort of redemption. Many, many years ago I wrote a book called This Side of Brightness where I stayed with the homeless people that live in the subway tunnels of New York and these were people living in like really, really tough situations, you know, in little caves off to the side of the tracks in dirt and squalor and no matter what situation they were in every single one of those homeless people said to me "When I get out of here ...," not "if I get out of here" but "When I get out of here I will do such and such a thing". Niall: The day job, when you’re not writing novels, is teaching – Hunter College.Colum: Oh yeah.Niall: Tell me about teaching.Colum: I’ve had loads of day jobs down through the years. I was a waiter, a bartender, a ditch digger – I did all sorts of things – but I love teaching. In fact, winning the IMPAC Dublin last night I had the chance to invite two of my teachers along and I have great admiration for them because I can remember my teachers, I can remember like being in 3rd class and the scratch of the chalk against the board and like all sorts of things. I have tremendous respect for teachers. I also have tremendous respect for ... I think teachers and librarians go in the same category for me. I think librarians are teachers and teachers are librarians in certain ways and I think they do tremendous things for us that don’t necessary get acknowledged. And any country that doesn’t look after its teachers, in particular, and its libraries and its books I think is doomed in a certain way. One of the great causes, I think, for optimism even now in Ireland after all the stuff has hit the fan is that we still do, I think, have a certain amount of respect for the book, for the word and I hope we continue like to have respect for, you know, those teachers. Well my wife’s a teacher and all that sort of stuff so, you know, I’m invested in this but I think it’s important.Niall: Who have you been reading?Colum: Well we get our voice from all the others that are around us. Right now I’ve been reading all this 19th century stuff, trying to get a voice around that Irish story about Douglas and stuff, so I’ve been reading Sheridan and I’ve been reading books that were published by Richard Webb here in Ireland, reading Frederick Douglas himself and all that sort of stuff. But then I’ve been reading, you know, the ones I love. Dermot Bolger, for instance, and Sebastian Barry, Roddy Doyle, you know, like all these ...Niall: The women in your book ... there are more interesting female characters than male characters.Colum: Yeah. Women are more ... I mean I realised half way through writing this book this is a women’s book and not to say that men can’t or won’t read it but the women in the book take charge of what’s going on, the men are a little bit more passive.Niall: Had you a working title?Colum No. No, I didn’t know what it was going be and the most amazing thing about that title is it comes from Tennyson but it was inspired by a series of pre-Islamic 6th century Arabic poems called the Mu'allaqāt which are like the suspended poems or the hanging poems that the poets would put in the marketplaces around. In the Mu'allaqāt they ask – which goes to the theme of the novel – is there any hope that this desolation can bring me solace? And I was like, ah Jesus, you know. (laughter) I was lucky, yeah.