The Arts Council has expressed its regret at the passing of author and Aosdána member Val Mulkerns.
Sheila Pratschke, Chair of the Arts Council said: “One of the first members of Aosdána, Val Mulkerns was an integral part of the fabric of Irish literary and cultural life. A writer of astute observation and genuine beauty, she worked across multiple forms - novels, short fiction, children’s literature, criticism, memoir. Deeply admired and widely read, Mulkerns leaves behind a rich legacy, and will be greatly missed."
Born in Dublin in 1925, she moved to London after working in the civil service, and returned to Ireland in 1952 as associate editor of The Bell. Her novels included A Time Outworn (1951), A Peacock Cry (1954), The Summerhouse (1984) and Very Like A Whale (1986). Her short stories are collected as Antiquities (1978), An Idle Woman (1980), and A Friend of Don Juan (1988). She jointly won the AIB Prize for Literature in 1984. As Mayo County Library's first writer-in-residence in 1987-1988, she edited the New Writings from the West anthology. She wrote a weekly column for the Evening Press from 1968 to 1983, and she had written two children's books, which were translated into German and published by Benziger of Zurich. She was married to the late writer Maurice Kennedy, and edited a posthumous collection of his work The Way to Vladivostok (2000). She lived outside Dublin. She was a regular broadcaster, and had recently completed a memoir
The Council is deeply saddened by the news of her death.
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