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CLAIRE KEEGAN (IRELAND)
Claire Keegan was raised on a farm in County Wicklow, the youngest of a large Catholic family. She travelled to New Orleans, Louisiana when she was seventeen and studied English and Political Science at Loyola University. Upon returning to Ireland she began writing short stories and also completed a Master’s degree in Creative Writing in Cardiff, Wales and an M.Phil. from Trinity College, Dublin.
Early on, Claire Keegan won the William Trevor Prize judged by William Trevor. Her first collection of short stories, Antarctica (Faber & Faber, 1999) announced her as an exceptionally gifted and versatile writer of contemporary fiction and was awarded the Rooney Prize for Literature. Her second collection of stories, Walk the Blue Fields (Faber & Faber, 2007), was published to enormous critical acclaim and won her the 2008 Edge Hill Prize for Short Stories. Most recently, she won the Davy Byrnes Memorial Prize, judged by Richard Ford, for her short story, Foster (2009).
Claire Keegan also has a great reputation as a reader and as a teacher. She was writer-in-residence at University College, Dublin; University College, Cork; Dublin City University; University of St Michael’s College, Toronto; and was Heimbold Professor of Irish Studies at Villanova University. Claire Keegan lives in rural Ireland. |
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ABOUT HER WRITING
"The risk inherent in being alive is always present for Claire Keegan… She is a voice reminding us that literary perception is no decadent amusement, but rather provides an elemental orientation."
 Ingeborg Harms
"She is a young writer who has already staked her claim to genius. Her mastery of language and her full-blooded and flowing narratives impress on the reader a certain bleak and tender vision, which has much in common with that of the great Irish writer John McGahern. Yet it is distinctive, personal and modern. Her stories stand at the strong point where myth and reality intersect… The sense of place was acute, and her often sly and dry humour was a constant delight."
Hilary Mantel
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FORTHCOMING PUBLICATION
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Night of the Quicken Trees
by Claire Keegan (Ireland)
with wood engravings by Wesley W. Bates (Canada)
Autumn 2013
short story | paperback | first edition of 300
ISBN (Canada)
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