This year's Cúirt International Festival of Literature starts today in Galway featuring the usual mix of Irish and international writers. This year guests include Joanne Harris, Eleanor Catton, Hugo Hamilton and Roddy Doyle.
Joanne Harris talks about the evolution of her writing career in this 'Rattlebag' interview with Myles Dungan, broadcast on 28 March 2002. She says her first two novels were poorly marketed as "gothic horror". She later found her voice with 'Chocolat', which was published in 1999 and later made into a film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. Harris got the idea for the story when her husband said that football was chocolate for men. There were a lot of football-themed books around, so she thought why not write a book about chocolate for women?
Cúirt runs from 8 to 13 April 2014.
Statue of Irish writer Pádraic Ó Conaire in Eyre Square, Galway, 1979. The photographer was Des Gaffney © RTÉ Archives 2139/088
