Sebastian Barry is part of what Eoin Colfer called last evening, "the Irish contingent". A pretty impressive contingent they too are I must say.
Barry is an internationally acclaimed playwright and novelist, has been short-listed for the Man Booker on three occasions. He has won a swag of other awards,(list below), he is one of the great contemporary Irish writers and I was thrilled to have the chance to see and hear him.
In discussion with Jan Cronin from the University of Auckland he proved a thoughtful, serious and eloquent speaker and conversationalist.
But it was when he got up and read several pages from his 2011 Costa Book Prize winning novel On Canaan's Side that he stunned the audience and you could have heard a pin drop in the filled ASB Theatre. Having heard hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of authors read their work during my lifetime in the book world I have never heard a performance quite like this one. It was absolutely magnificent. I guess being the son of an actor, and being himself a hugely successful playwright, he has observed many fine actors. This reading would have done any of those actors proud. When he finished the audience erupted in huge applause.
Chair Jan Cronin (who seemed impossibly young) is an expert on Irish literature and she was clearly completely au fait with all of Barry's works. She led him in a discussion of his writing life since graduating from Trinity College Dublin in 1977 and what an interesting life it has been. Clearly one of his preoccupations is with recovering those parts of Irish history that have been forgotten or displaced by official, particularly nationalist histories.He spoke about this at length.
And at question time his answers were long and thoughtful.
This is one of the best Festival sessions I have ever attended anywhere and I could have listened to Sebastian Barry for the rest of the day.He is a star.
No comments:
Post a Comment