Hugo Hamilton & Dennis O’Driscoll. Saturday 28 March, 7.00pm

Queen’s University, Lecture Theatre G9

Part of Between The Lines 2009

Hugo Hamilton

Hugo Hamilton was born in Dublin in 1953 after his mother came to Ireland from Germany. His first three novels – Surrogate City (1990), The Last Shot (1991) and The Love Test (1995) – were set in central Europe.Headbanger (1996), a darkly comic crime novel set in Dublin, was followed by a sequel, Sad Bastard (1998) while Sucking Deisel(2002) was followed by a book of short stories, Dublin Where the Palm Trees Grow (1996). Hugo Hamilton’s acclaimed, widely translated memoir of a German-Irish childhood, The Speckled People (2003), hailed as a ‘masterpiece’ (Colm Tóibín) and‘instant classic’ (Roy Foster), saw its themes deepened and extended in The Sailor in the Wardrobe (2006). In May 2007, German publisher Luchterhand published Die redselige Insel, in which the author retraced Heinrich Böll’s Irish journey of 1957. In 1992 Hugo Hamilton was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature;the French translation of The Speckled People won the Prix Femina Etranger (2004) and its Italian translation won the Premio Giuseppe Berto (2004). Hugo Hamilton lives in Dublin and his recent novel, Disguise (2008), expores complex themes of identity and belonging with startling acuity and lyrical grace.

Dennis O’Driscoll

Dennis O’Driscoll, born in Thurles, County Tipperary, in 1954 has worked as a civil servant since the age of sixteen. He is a former editor of Poetry Ireland Review, and is widely published and respected as a poet and critic. His numerous books of poetry from Kist (1982) to Reality Check (2007), shortlisted for the Irish Times/Poetry Now Prize, and the recent chapbook All the Living (2008) have widened and deepened a reputation already secure with the publication of New & Selected Poems (2004). The poetry has also been included in major anthologies. The significant prose writing, as a critic and reviewer, was published as Troubled Thoughts, Majestic Dreams in 2001. Recently his interviews with Seamus Heaney have been published as Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney ( 2008). Dennis O’Driscoll also edited The Bloodaxe Book of Poetry Quotations (2006). His awards include a Lannan Literary Award in 1999, the 2005 E.M. Forster Award and the 2006 O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry from the Center for Irish Studies, Minnesota. A member of Aosdána, he currently lives in Co Kildare.

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