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What’s the state of criticism in Ireland? Who needs reviewers and critics and are they even worth reading in any case? Well, one man who is worth reading is Kevin Power, novelist, whose The Written World, just published by The Lilliput Press, gathers some of the reviews and essays he’s written over the last decade. I’ll be talking to Kevin about his book in this, the last Books for Breakfast of the current season; we hope you’ve enjoyed the journey so far and hopefully we’ll be back with more in the autumn. In the meantime feel free to enjoy the now extensive back catalogue of breakfast bites …

Kevin Power established his reputation early, with the publication of Bad Day at Blackrock, which told a fictionalised version of a story that had gripped the country, the death of Brian Murphy  in Dublin in 2000 as a result of a violent assault outside a nightclub. That novel was subsequently made into the award winning film What Richard Did  directed by Lenny Abrahamson in 2012. He was the winner of the 2009 Rooney Prize and last year his much anticipated second novel White City was published and won a lot of attention and praise. A darkly funny book, it revisits the same sort of terrain occupied by Bad Day at Blackrock, set in the word of Celtic Tiger Ireland among the city’s privileged and in this case ruthless upper classes, and it’s in the voice of the seriously shattered son of a South Dublin banker desperately trying to piece his life together. 

Praise for The Written World
'Kevin Power’s glorious collection reveals a writer to depend upon.'
Declan Hughes in The Irish Independent

The elegant and intelligent essays in The Written World will appeal to anyone with an interest in literary criticism.

– Nicole Flattery, author of Show Them A Good Time

'The Written World is a testament to Power’s well-deserved status as one of Ireland’s most reliably engaging writers. Oh, and did I mention he’s often hilarious, too?'
– Totally Dublin

'...his book is metropolitan and cosmopolitan in word and spirit, enlightening and amusing, and across its pages art is happening too.;
– drb.ie

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