Anne Teresa Enright[2]FRSL (born 11 October 1962) is an Irish writer. The first Laureate for Irish Fiction (2015–2018) and winner of the Man Booker Prize (2007), she has published eight novels, many short stories, and a non-fiction work called Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, about the birth of her two children. Her essays on literary themes have appeared in the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books, and she writes for the books pages of The Irish Times and The Guardian. Her fiction explores themes such as family, love, identity and motherhood.[3]
Enright won the 2007 Man Booker Prize for her fourth novel The Gathering. Her second novel, What Are You Like?, was shortlisted in the novel category of the 2000 Whitbread Awards. Her 2012 novel The Forgotten Waltz won the Andre Carnegie Medal for Fiction. Her novel The Green Road was shortlisted for the Woman's Prize, and won The Irish Novel of the Year (2015).
Enright was a television producer and director for RTÉ in Dublin for six years[7] and produced the RTÉ programme Nighthawks for four years.[3] She then worked in children's programming for two years and wrote on weekends. She began writing full-time in 1993.[8] Her full-time career as a writer came about when she left television due to a breakdown, later remarking: "I recommend it [...] having a breakdown early. If your life just falls apart early on, you can put it together again. It's the people who are always on the brink of crisis who don't hit bottom who are in trouble."[9] Of her time spent working behind the scenes as a producer, Enright said: "There was a great buzz and sometimes I felt like awarding myself purple hearts for the work I was doing."[9] It was a time of "drinking too much" and "hanging around" with people "who don't really have steady jobs".[9]
She has described her working practice as involving "rocking the pram with one hand and typing with the other".[9]
Critics have suggested that it was from the work of Flann O'Brien that Enright derived her early efforts.[9] 1991 brought the publication of The Portable Virgin, a collection of her short stories. Angela Carter (who, as Enright's former creative writing teacher, knew her well) called it "elegant, scrupulously poised, always intelligent and, not least, original."[9]
Enright's first novel was published in 1995. Titled The Wig My Father Wore, the book explores themes such as love, motherhood and the Catholic Church. The narrator of the novel is Grace, who lives in Dublin and works for a tacky game show. Her father wears a wig that cannot be spoken of in front of him. An angel called Stephen who committed suicide in 1934 and has come back to earth to guide lost souls moves into Grace's home and she falls in love with him.[10]
In 2000 Enright's second novel, What Are You Like?, was published. About twin girls called Marie and Maria who are separated at birth and raised apart from each other in Dublin and London, it looks at tensions and ironies between family members. It was shortlisted in the novel category of the Whitbread Awards.[11]
Enright's seventh novel Actress was selected for the longlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020. It tells the story of a daughter detailing her mother's rise to fame in late twentieth-century Irish theatre, Broadway, and Hollywood.[14]
Other
Her writing has appeared in various magazines and newspapers. The New Yorker has published her writing in seven years over two decades: 2000, 2001 and 2005, 2007, 2017, 2019 and 2020.[15] The 4 October 2007 issue of the London Review of Books published Enright's piece "Disliking the McCanns" about Kate and Gerry McCann, the British parents of the three-year-old child Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in suspicious circumstances while on holiday with her family in Portugal in May 2007.[16][17][18][19]Mary Kenny described Enright as "irrationally prejudiced", a woman with "bad judgement", and questioned an apology which Enright issued.
In 2011, the Irish Academic Press published a collection of essays about her writing, edited by Claire Bracken and Susan Cahill.[23] Her writing is illustrated in the video "Reading Ireland".[24] Enright received the Irish PEN Award for Literature in 2017.[25]
TaoiseachEnda Kenny appointed Enright as the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction. During her time as Laureate for Irish Fiction, Enright promoted people's engagement with Irish literature through public lectures and creative writing classes. She later took up teaching at UCD's School of English, beginning in the 2018–19 academic year.[2]
^Deevy, Patricia (13 October 2002). "Life's exquisite pleasures". Irish Independent. Independent News & Media. Archived from the original on 25 May 2009. Retrieved 17 October 2007.
^Seymour, Miranda (23 March 2003). "First Mistress of Paraguay". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 27 July 2018. Retrieved 17 October 2007.
^Day, Elizabeth (9 March 2014). "Is the LRB the best magazine in the world?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 3 August 2020. Retrieved 13 August 2020. What about the piece written in 2007 by Booker-prize winner Anne Enright concerning the parents of Madeleine McCann...
^Enright, Anne (October 2007). "Diary: Disliking the McCanns". London Review of Books. Archived from the original on 11 October 2007. Retrieved 18 October 2007.
^"Enright wins literary award". The Irish Times. Irish Times Trust. 9 June 2004. Archived from the original on 2 September 2021. Retrieved 17 October 2007.
