The May Art of Reading book club features Colm in conversation with Colin Barrett on his short story collection 'Homesickness'

This is an ingeniously told story, narrated by an actual book, a novel by the Austrian writer Joseph Roth, offering an account of its picaresque travels to America and back to Europe, while in the background we learn of the life of Joseph Roth himself and the dark times he lived in.” Colm Tóibín, Laureate for Irish Fiction 2022-2024

The March Art of Reading book club features Colm in conversation with Adrian Frazier about the novel Esther Waters by George Moore.

‘In this novel, Moore works like a nineteenth century French painter in drawing a portrait of a spirited young women of reduced circumstances facing her destiny in an unforgiving world.’ Colm Tóibín

Welcome to The Art of Reading, a monthly book club hosted by Colm Tóibín, the Laureate for Irish Fiction, and shared on the last Thursday of every month.

The first Art of Reading book club features Colm in conversation with Claire Keegan about her latest work ‘Small Things Like These’.

Each month our Laureate will discuss a novel by an Irish writer, highlighting outstanding Irish writing and celebrating the reader and book clubs. The selected titles will include new work by contemporary Irish writers as well as novels from the past that the Laureate wishes to bring to a new generation of readers. To see the list of Colm’s selected books for 2022 and to read ahead, download the Art of Reading book club pamphlet from the webpage here: https://www.artscouncil.ie/Arts-in-Ireland/Literature/Laureate-for-Irish-Fiction/The-Art-of-Reading-Book-Club/

Readers, book lovers and book clubs everywhere are invited to join in the Art of Reading with the Laureate, to read these outstanding books and to engage in reading in a deep and focused way.

Sebastian Barry gives his final lecture as Laureate for Irish Fiction. Introduction by Arts Council Chair, Kevin Rafter.

In late 1994 Donal McCann undertook to play the lead in The Steward of Christendom. The second Laureate lecture, called Still Life, with Donal is Sebastian Barry's account of the extraordinary experience of working with such a unique, challenging and veritably nuclear actor and human being.

Barry's first Laureate for Irish Fiction Lecture The Lives of Saints was delivered in Dublin in autumn 2018. It reflected on the people and writers who supported him along his writing journey, including his aunt Annie, Val Mulkerns, Benedict Kiely, Michael Hartnett, Leland Bardwell, Tom Murphy and Harold Pinter.

Sebastian Barry is the second Laureate for Irish Fiction and was awarded the honour by the Arts Council in early 2018. The Laureate for Irish Fiction promotes Irish literature nationally and internationally and encourage the public to engage with high quality Irish fiction. The Laureate for Irish Fiction has been developed by the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon and is supported by University College Dublin (UCD) and New York University (NYU).

On 9 September at the Gate Theatre Dublin, Laureate for Irish Fiction Sebastian Barry delivered his first annual lecture entitled The Lives of the Saints.

Speaking about the lecture, Sebastian Barry said, “In forty years of writing and living, inevitably and often by mere accident, a writer encounters other writers. This lecture is an account of some of the singular individuals met in this way over the years, many no longer with us, but who hold strong places in memory, and constitute a kind of private reference for how to endure as a writer and indeed how to write.”

Sebastian Barry is the second Laureate for Irish Fiction and was awarded the honour by the Arts Council in early 2018. The Laureate for Irish Fiction promotes Irish literature nationally and internationally and encourage the public to engage with high quality Irish fiction. The Laureate for Irish Fiction has been developed by the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon and is supported by University College Dublin (UCD) and New York University (NYU).

Anne Enright delivered her first US lecture as Laureate for Irish Fiction at the Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House as part of the Laureate programme in April 2016.

Speaking prior to the lecture, Enright said, “When I flew to New York in February 2000 I thought my life could not get better: I was pregnant, I was bringing the proofs for my first New Yorker story in my bag, and I met Seamus Heaney on the plane. The next day I went to the offices of the magazine and paused in the ladies room to remember Maeve Brennan, and to consider the rumour that she lived for a while in the washroom of the old offices on West 43rd St. I have always been interested in what drives a writer mad. It was natural for me to think about Brennan while I was living in the city this year. I wanted to put her on the streets of New York, to write about place - but of course I wrote about madness instead. What is the difference between imagination and psychosis? And what made it impossible for Maeve Brennan, an Irish woman abroad, to be herself?”

Anne Enright was the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction. The Laureate for Irish Fiction promotes Irish literature nationally and internationally and encourage the public to engage with high quality Irish fiction. The Laureate for Irish Fiction has been developed by the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon and is supported by University College Dublin (UCD) and New York University (NYU).

In this series, the Laureate for Irish Fiction, Sebastian Barry sits down with some of his favourite writers to ask: What the Hell/Heaven Are We Doing?

His on-going conversation about the mysteries of writing and the intricacies of the craft continues this week with award-winning Irish novelist Eimear McBride.

In this conversation, Eimear and Sebastian discuss the limits of language, what "home" feels like, misogyny, chaos and much more.

The Laureate for Irish Fiction is an initiative of the Arts Council in partnership with University College Dublin and New York University.

The Laureate for Irish Fiction, Sebastian Barry, hosts a series of brief conversations with fellow writers asking big questions about the nature of writing itself.

Kevin is a multiple award-winning writer whose most recent book, Night Boat to Tangier, was published in 2019. Here, he sits down with Sebastian via video chat to puzzle out some of the deeper questions about the art of writing, including the influence of early family life on one's writing, lyricism in prose, and how and why a writer should have a good self-care routine.