
Suite à la représentation de Paula Spencer au Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord
Dialogue entre Roddy Doyle et Frédéric Ferney
Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958 and is the author of eight novels, one book of short stories The Deportees and Rory and Ita, a memoir about his parents. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and most recently the Listowel Writers Prize for Paula Spencer. He has written five plays, Brownbread, War and Guess Who's Coming for the Dinner and co-wrote two, one with Joe O'Byrne a stage adaptation of his novel The Woman Who Walked into Doors and the other with Bisi Adigun an adaptation of The Playboy of the Western World. He has written four screenplays Family, The Van, The Snapper, When Brendan Met Trudy and co-wrote the screenplay for The Commitments. For children he has written four books, The Giggler Treatment, Rover Saves Christmas, The Meanwhile Adventures and Wilderness.
He lives and works in Dublin.
In the context of the Franco-Irish Tandem Project of the 'Saison culturelle européenne', two of his novels have been adapted for theatre - The Woman Who Walked into Doors (1996) and Paula Spencer (2006).
For the occasion, the French translation of The Woman Who Walked into Doors is being reissued by Editions Robert Laffont (La femme qui se cognait dans les portes).
Frédéric Ferney is a former culture editor of Le Nouvel Observateur magazine and of Le Figaro newspaper, where he was also drama critic for ten years. He went on to host the literary programme, Le Bateau Livre, on the TV channel France 5 and has made several films about theatre for Arte's series Pièces montées. Ferney is also a literary columnist on France Culture, a drama critic for the magazine Le Point and has published several books: Le dernier amour de Monsieur M. (2005), Aragon, la seule façon d'exister (1997), Blaise Cendrars (1993), Eloge de la France immobile (1992), La comédie littéraire (1987), and Oscar Wilde ou les cendres de la gloire (2007).