Charlie Byrne’s hosts reading from Fiction Laureate Anne

Ireland’s first ever Laureate for Irish Fiction Anne Enright read to a full house in Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop in the City on Sunday – the event in Galway was one of the first ‘official’ gigs in her three-year tenure.

The Wicklow resident, who won the 2007 Man-Booker prize for her novel The Gathering, describes the timing of her laureateship as ‘sweet’ as she has just finished her latest novel, which is due out in May.

Writing is part of her brief as Laureate, but she’s not under any pressure to get creative for a while, as the new book will be followed by publicity tours in Ireland, the US, Canada and Germany.

And as her fellow writer John McGahern said or is supposed to have said: “With the grace of God, I won’t have another idea until Christmas!’” she chortles.

Anne is “pleased at the honour” of being Ireland’s first Fiction Laureate, “but on my mettle regarding the job”.

Her appointment was announced last Thursday – following a nationwide nomination process, and then selection by a panel of respected writers. But Anne has known of it since before Christmas.

“I had to put my mind to what it was all about because it was a new post,” she explains.

The job entails two substantial teaching aspects– one in UCD, the other in New York University – and she will also give an annual lecture and curate events throughout the three years.

“But I don’t want to be a rent-a-quote,” she says firmly. “I want to effect something at ground level; to be out and about.”

One area where Anne feels the laureateship will be important is “in bringing young writers and other voices forward”.

When it comes to her own relationship with readers, Anne has been quoted as saying that she is more popular abroad than at home. But it’s more complex than that, she says.

“Writers are often not as well seen in their own place as elsewhere, because they have complicated things to say about that community.”

And she feels that “there is a reluctance in the Irish critical community to discuss what Ireland is. So the relationship here is less straightforward than when I go to America”.

But her stature has been acknowledged by this appointment.

As the first of a series of writers who will take on this post, Anne feels the role is significant.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.