Lucy Caldwell & Anne Enright Reading.

The Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels, in partnership with the Embassy of Ireland, was pleased to host a special ‘Meet the Author’ event on 16 November in our Narnia room, with readings and discussion from two of the finest writers from the island of Ireland, Lucy Caldwell and Anne Enright. ONIEB was thrilled to collaborate on this event as part of the Embassy of Ireland’s Book Club series, which is supported by Culture Ireland and the European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies (EFACIS).

The event began with a reading from Lucy Caldwell from her books These Days and Intimacies, followed by a fascinating interview with ONIEB Director Aodhán Connolly, where Lucy delved into the intricacies of researching for a work of historical fiction, as well as discussing her approach to her craft and the recurrent themes in her work, such as motherhood and the exploration of stories of women traversing modern life.

After a short break, where guests enjoyed canapés and refreshments, including specialist whiskies and gins from the island of Ireland, Anne Enright was then interviewed by Ambassador Kevin Conmy from the Embassy of Ireland, Belgium. From their insightful discussion, guests learned about Anne’s extensive experience and contribution to the Irish literary scene as Laureate for Irish Fiction (2015-2018), as well as her reflections on the #MeToo movement. The Booker-winning author read from her novel Actress and then treated guests to a sneak peak of an excerpt from a manuscript she is currently working on. Guests were delighted to have the opportunity to purchase copies of the books discussed and have them signed by the writers on the evening.

Lucy Caldwell was born in Belfast. She is the author of four novels, most recently These Days (Faber, 2022), several stage plays and radio dramas and two short story collections, Multitudes and Intimacies, with a third collection, Openings, forthcoming with Faber in 2024. She is also the editor of the anthology Being Various: New Irish Short Stories (Faber, 2019). Awards include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the George Devine Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, a Major Individual Artist Award from the ACNI and the BBC National Short Story Award in 2021 for “All the People Were Mean and Bad”. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018. Find out more about Lucy here. 

Anne Enright is a Dublin writer, born in 1962. The author of seven novels, two books of short stories and many essays, her short work is published in The New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, The London Review, the Guardian and The Irish Times. She is a winner of the Man Booker Prize (2007) and of the Irish novel of the year (2007 and 2015) and is widely translated. A former Laureate for Irish Fiction and current Professor of Creative Writing at UCD, her most recent publication is an introduction to the Vintage centenary edition of Ulysses. Find out more about Anne here.