Recreation

Anne Enright

The GatheringRecently catapulted to fame after winning the Man Booker prize for her novel The Gathering, Enright has in actual fact been a published author since 1991s collection of short stories The portable virgin. Novels followed: The wig my father wore, What are you like? and The pleasure of Eliza Lynch (which I am ashamed to admit I started but did not finished). A collection of essays on a parenting theme was also published in 2004 - Enright has two young children.

Enright's novels and stories defy any general summary of theme but have dealt with issues around Catholicism, family tension, motherhood, power and, as is de rigueur, love.

Taking pictures is her latest collection of stories and the Times newspaper characterised them as having “a distinctive Irishness, and an equally distinctive melancholy… a watchful eye and a gift for astringent one-liners”.

Anne Enright is making just two festival appearances, on a panel discussing the art of the short story and in a solo hour talking about her own work.