Tuesday 9 February 2010, 19.30
La Médiathèque rencontre… Leanne O’Sullivan
& Roderick Ford
admission free, reservation necessary (places limited), in English

Leanne O'Sullivan, from West Cork, is still in her twenties but has already won most of Ireland's main poetry competitions. Her first collection of poems Waiting for my Clothes (Bloodaxe 2004), traces a deeply personal journey. Her latest collection is Cailleach: The Hag of Béara (Bloodaxe 2009).

Roderick Ford’s collection, The Shoreline of Falling, was shortlisted for a Glen Dimplex award for the best first book in Britain and Ireland. He won the Listowel poetry collection and single poem prizes, and also the Francis Ledwidge Award. His second collection, The Green Crown, was published in 2009.
 

 

Thursday 11 February 2010, 19.30
Nicholas Grene
Synge of Paris : photographer, traveller, dramatist
admission free, reservation recommended,
in English
 
In one of his first published Aran essays, Synge used four of his photographs as illustrations, with the credit 'Synge, Paris'. This is the departure point for Nicholas Grene’s illustrated talk about the way in which Synge’s travels fed into his plays. Grene, who teaches in Trinity College Dublin, is a specialist on modern Irish drama. He is the editor of J. M. Synge, Travelling Ireland: Essays 1898 – 1908, eighteen of which concern the Aran Islands and the west of Ireland.


 

Thursday 4 March 2010, 19.30
John Boyne
admission free, reservation recommended,
in English

John Boyne’s 2006 novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas spent more than eighty weeks at no.1 in Ireland and topped the New York Times Bestseller List. It has been translated into more than forty languages and was made into a major film in 2008. Born in Dublin, John Boyne studied English Literature at Trinity College and creative writing at the University of East Anglia. He has published six other novels and a number of short stories. His latest novel The House of Special Purpose was published in 2009.

Screening of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas on 2 March 2010: see Cinema 


 

 

Thursday 18 March 2010, 19.30
Café littéraire :
Eureka Street
€5, reservation necessary (places limited),
in English
 
The Centre Culturel de l’Université La Sorbonne-Paris 4 with the Centre Culturel Irlandais present this first café littéraire looking at Robert McLiam Wilson’s compelling contemporary novel Eureka Street (1996). An open discussion will be led by Sonia Le Gall and Elizabeth Viain, graduates in English and members of the Centre Culturel de la Sorbonne, and followed by a reading of excerpts from the book by Elizabeth Viain and Bernhard Engel, from Les Livreurs, lecteurs sonores.
 

Tuesday 23 March 2010, 19.30
La Médiathèque rencontre… Conall Morrison
admission free, reservation necessary (places limited), in English

Artist-in-residence Conall Morrison is a Dublin-based director and writer. As a director, he has worked extensively for companies such as the Abbey Theatre, Dublin where he is Associate Artist, the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, Storytellers Theatre Company and Bickerstaffe Theatre Company, Kilkenny. Most recently, Conall directed La Traviata for English National Opera and The Taming of the Shrew for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In March 2009, he directed The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant, a new play by Tom Murphy for the Abbey Theatre.
  

 

Thursday 25 March 2010, 19.30
Regard sur l’Irlande :
Mary Raftery
admission free, reservation recommended,
in English
 
Mary Raftery is a broadcaster, film-maker and writer, best known for her scrutiny of the Irish childcare system between the 1930s and 1980s. Her film States of Fear, first screened in 1999, was influential in leading to the establishment of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse by the Irish government; this report was finally published in May 2009. Suffer the Little Children, co-written with Dr Eoin O’Sullivan, was published in 2001. Mary Raftery is a regular columnist with the Irish Times.


 

Wednesday 31 March 2010, 19.30
Sid Peacock and
Steve Tromans
« Beat Generation » performance
admission free, reservation recommended,
in English



The original Beat Generation writers met in New York in the 1950s and quickly developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists, who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity. Composer-in-residence Sid Peacock met Allen Ginsberg when he read at the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast. Accompanied by fellow-musician Steve Tromans, Peacock will narrate some of the major Beat works: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, Gregory Corso’s Bomb, excerpts from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and William Burroughs’ The Naked Lunch.