The Art of Reading is a monthly book club hosted by Colm Tóibín, the Laureate for Irish Fiction.
Each month, the Laureate meets a different library book club to discuss a book by an Irish writer, highlighting outstanding Irish writing and celebrating the reader and book clubs.
The selected titles celebrate new work by contemporary Irish writers, but previous episodes have also highlighted work from the past that the Laureate wishes to bring to a new generation of readers.
This episode features Colm in conversation with Emma Donoghue about her fourteenth novel, Haven, published in 2022 - watch the video above.
Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an award-winning writer living in Canada. Her latest novel Haven, is about the monks who landed on Skellig Michael in the seventh century.
She was nominated for an Academy Award and a Bafta for her adaptation of her Booker-shortlisted international bestseller Room, and her theatrical adaptation with songs by Cora Bissett and Kathryn Joseph (which premiered at the Abbey) opened on Broadway in April 2023.
She co-wrote the 2022 film of her novel The Wonder, Netflix UK’s first feature shot in Ireland. Some of her other novels are The Pull of the Stars, Akin, Frog Music, The Sealed Letter, Life Mask and Slammerkin, as well as The Lotterys Plus One and The Lotterys More or Less for younger readers.
The Art of Reading Book Club is an initiative of the Arts Council and the Laureate for Irish Fiction, in partnership with Libraries Ireland. Find out more here.
