Anne Enright this evening delivered her first US lecture as Laureate
for Irish Fiction at the Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House as part of the
Laureate programme.
Laureate for Irish Fiction Anne Enright is currently in New
York where she is teaching creative writing at New York University (NYU) and
working directly with students and faculty. In addition to her teaching
commitments at NYU, Enright has undertaken a busy schedule of events and today,
she delivered her Laureate lecture, An
Irish Woman Abroad: Maeve Brennan Goes Mad In New York, at the Lillian
Vernon Creative Writers House, 58 West 10th Street.
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?”
Director of the Arts Council Orlaith McBride, who travelled
to New York to attend the lecture, said, “When the Arts Council first imagined
this position, the annual public lecture was central to our idea of what a
Laureate would be and will undoubtedly form a legacy.” She continued, “We kept
the brief for the lectures loose, and for good reason. When a writer of Anne
Enright’s calibre puts the force of her mind behind something, the outcome will
be remarkable. Her lectures, her interviews, just a conversation with Anne:
these force you to interrogate the world around you. They help you to see the
world with new eyes. The Arts Council is immensely proud to showcase the
brilliance of Irish writing internationally through the Laureate, further
building Ireland’s reputation as a country that nurtures and supports artists
and creativity.”
The
lecture was attended by students, members of the cultural and arts sectors, and
members of the public. The lecture was greeted with substantial and sustained
applause, and will be repeated in Ireland in the second half of 2016. This
fascinating and textured piece of writing will be published in May 2016 as the
introduction to The Stinging Fly’s new edition of Maeve Brennan’s celebrated
collection of Dublin stories, The Springs of Affection.
Enright’s first Laureate for Irish Fiction Lecture – Antigone in Galway – was delivered in
Dublin and in Cork in autumn 2015, and was later published in the London Review
of Books.
A third lecture is planned for 2017.
Information on all of the Laureate’s events is available on the Arts Council’s
website, www.artscouncil.ie/laureate,
and highlights from these events will be posted on the site.
←Return to the news