In April of 2016, inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction Anne Enright delivered her annual laureate lecture in New York, an appropriate location for her chosen subject - Dublin-born Maeve Brennan, a NYC resident for some five decades.
Acclaimed for her journalism and short stories, Maeve Brennan died forgotten and destitute in 1993 - recent years have seen a major reappraisal of her oeuvre, with Enright penning the introduction to a new edition of Brennan's masterpiece The Springs Of Afffection.
In this illuminating lecture, Anne Enright discusses Maeve Brennan's life and work:
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Maeve Brennan didn’t have to be a woman for her work to be forgotten, though it surely helped. She did not have to become a bag lady for her work to be revived, though that possibly helped too. The story of her mental decline is terrifying for anyone who works with words, who searches her clean, sour sentences for some hint or indication of future madness, and then turns to check their own....
The Springs Of Affection, with an introduction by Anne Enright, is published by Stinging Fly Press.
