Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Crime fiction and contemporary Ireland

First announcement of an event I'm organising. All welcome, free entry.

Crime Fiction and Contemporary Ireland:
An audience with Declan Burke, Gene Kerrigan and Niamh O'Connor

Tuesday, 6th March, 5-7pm, Renehan Hall, NUI Maynooth

It is perhaps no coincidence that at time of crisis and social and economic upheaval Irish crime fiction is flourishing both domestically and internationally. More than any other genre, crime fiction is said to document and help its readers make sense of the social, political and economic landscape of its setting. Talking about their own work and that of other Irish novelists, the three authors will discuss the role of the crime novel in reflecting and understanding contemporary Ireland.

Register: nirsa@nuim.ie


Declan Burke is the author of Absolute Zero Cool (2011), Crime Always Pays (2009), The Big O (2007) and Eight Ball Boogie (2003) and editor of Down These Green Streets: Irish Crime Writing in the Twenty First Century (2011). He writes the influential blog, Crime Always Pays, reviews crime novels for a number of newspapers and radio programmes, and is film reviewer for The Last Word on Today FM. Absolute Zero Cool was nominated for an Irish Book Award in 2011.

Gene Kerrigan is the author of four novels, The Rage (2011), Dark Times in the City (2010), Midnight Choir (2008), and Little Criminals (2007), and seven non-fiction books including Hard Cases (1996) and This Great Little Nation (1999). He is one of Ireland's leading political commentators, working as a columnist for the Sunday Independent. He won the Irish Book Award with Dark Times in the City and has been nominated for the Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger Award.

Niamh O'Connor is the author of two novels, Taken (2011) and If I Never See You Again (2010), and the author of the true crime books, Blood Ties (2009), Cracking Crime (2001), and The Black Widow (2000). She is a journalist and true crime editor at The Sunday World. If I Never See You Again was nominated for an Irish Book Award in 2010.

6 comments:

Maxine Clarke said...

Sounds great, I wish I could be there - though I would have to duck when Declan throws custard pies at me ;-)

Anonymous said...

Rob - Oh, this does sound great! Sorry I can't be there, but the custard pie thing has provided a great mental picture ;-). Thanks for that, Maxine :-).

Declan Burke said...

Maxine - Are you kidding me? Waste perfectly good custard pies when there's Irish kids reduced to eating the cardboard from Cornflakes boxes?

Cheers, Dec

(v-word: shystab)

seana graham said...

It sounds like a great evening. In America, though, "an audience with..." smacks of monarchy.

Susan Condon said...

Sounds great - I've just sent an email and will mark it on my calendar! :o)

Louise said...

A date in my calendar too:)