2 December 2015 18:30
Neill Lecture Theatre, Trinity Long Room Hub
Trinity’s excellence in humanities research draws on the literary treasures among the Library’s unique and distinct collections. Notable among these literary archives are the papers of Booker prize-winner John Banville. On the occasion of the publication of his most recent novel The Blue Guitar, John Banville spoke to Chris Morash, Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing.
John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of fifteen previous novels including The Sea, which won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. In 2011 he was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize, in 2013 he was awarded the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature, and in 2014 he won the Prince of Asturias Award, Spain’s most important literary prize. He lives in Dublin.
Chris Morash became the inaugural Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing on January 1, 2014. Born in Nova Scotia, his first degree is from Dalhousie University, after which moved to Ireland to join the first cohort of students in the M.Phil. in Anglo-Irish Literature (as it was called at the time) in Trinity in 1985; his Ph.D. on Irish Famine literature is also from Trinity, carried out under the supervision of Professor Terence Brown. Prior to his appointment to Trinity, Chris Morash worked happily for twenty-three years in NUI Maynooth, where he had been Professor of English since 2007, and founded the Centre for Media Studies in 2003.
Chris Morash is currently writing a book on Yeats and theatre. He is also co-editing the Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre with his colleague Prof. Nicholas Grene, as well as co-editing a special issue of Éire-Ireland with Robert Savage (Boston College), and developing a project on time in Irish culture with Prof. Martin Meddeke (Augsburg).