Anne Enright

Anne Enright has written eight novels, two books of short stories and a book of essays about motherhood. She was the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction (2015-2018) Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker since 2001/ Essays, lectures and articles are published by The London Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, The Dublin Review, The Guardian, The Irish Times and The New York Times. She was editor The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story (2011). Key awards were The Man Booker Prize (2007) - which brought her work to global attention - The Andrew Carnegie medal for Excellence in Fiction (2012) the Irish Novel of the year (2008 and 2016) The Writers' Prize for Fiction (2024) and the Seamus Heaney Award for Arts and Letters (2025). Her work has been translated into almost 40 languages. She was born in Dublin in 1962, and stayed. 



EDUCATION

M.A. in Creative Writing (cum laude) U.E.A., 1987
B.A (Hon.s, 1st Class) Trinity College Dublin, 1985
International Baccalaureate, Pearson College of the Pacific, Canada, 1979-1981
Leaving Certificate, St Louis High School, Rathmines, 1975-1979

HONOURS AND AWARDS

Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature 2007

Hennessy Literary Award Hall of Fame 2008

DLit (honoris causa) Queen’s University, 2008
DLit (honoris causa) Goldsmith’s College, 2012
LittD (honoris causa) University of East Anglia, 2014

Laureate for Irish Fiction 2015-2018

PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature, 2018
 
Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award 2022

Member Aosdana 2022 

Seamus Heaney Award for Arts and Letters 2025

PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT

1987-1993 Producer/Director RTE television

RECENT PUBLIC LECTURES AND PRESENTATIONS

2018 London Review Winter lecture at the British Museum
2017 Thomas Keneally Lecture University of New South Wales
2017 Lowell Lecture, Boston College, USA
2017 Laureateship Lecture, Dublin, on gender representation in Irish reviews.


RECENT PUBLICATIONS (ESSAYS)

The London Review

Eyes That Bite, Toni Morrisons Bluest Eye  2023
At Sandymount Stand (for Bloomsday), 2022
Priests in the Family, 2021
Beckett in a Field, 2021
Mortal Can these Bones Live: Jack by Marilynne Robinson, 2020
The Monsters of #MeToo, 2019
The Genesis of Blame: Adam and Eve, 2018
Diary: Gender Representation on the Irish literary scene, 2017
Antigone in Galway, Catherine Corless and the dishonoured dead, 2015
At Turner Contemporary: The works of Dorothy Cross, 2013
Diary: Censorship in Ireland, 2013

The New York Review of Books

Alice Munro's Retreat 2024

The High Irishg Style: John McGahern's The Pornographer 2024
Dubliners, And Introduction to James Joyce Ulysses, 2022
The Burden of 'Yes', 2021
Spirited Away, 2021
Wanting Wrong, 2020

Guardian:
Maeve Brennan, 2016
Return to the Western Shore: on yielding to the Irish tradition 2015

Irish Times

Dublin Made Me: a geographical memoir 2025 

She never Left: on Edna O'Brien 2024 

PUBLICATIONS (BOOKS)

2025 (forthcoming) Attention: Selected essays, Cape (UK) 
2023 The Wre, The Wren, nove Cape (UK), Norton (USA
2020 Actress, novel Cape (UK), Norton (USA)
2019 no authority: lectures from the laureateship, UCD Press
2015 The Green Road, novel, Cape (UK), Norton (USA)
2011 The Forgotten Waltz, novel, Cape (UK), Norton (USA)
2009  The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story (editor) 
2008 Yesterday's Weather, collected short stories, Grove Press (USA)
2008 Taking Pictures, short stories, Cape (UK)
2007 The Gathering, novel, Cape (UK), Grove Press (USA)
2004 Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, Cape (UK), Norton, (USA)
2002 The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch, novel, Cape (UK), Grove Press (USA)
2000 What Are You Like?, novel, Cape (UK), Grove Press (USA)
1995 The Wig My Father Wore, novel, Secker and Warburg (UK), Grove Press (USA)
1991 The Portable Virgin, short stories, Secker and Warburg (UK)

PRIZES

The Wren, The Wren 

2024 Winner the Writers' Prize for Fiction

2014 Shortlisted, The Women's Prize 

Actress

2021 Longlisted, The Women's Prize

The Green Road
2017 Shortlist Dublin Literary Prize (IMPAC) 
2016 Winner Irish Novel of the Year, The Green Road
2016 Winner Independent Booksellers Award
2016 Winner Listowel Irish Fiction Prize
2016 Shortlist Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction
2016 Shortlist Costa Novel of the Year
2016 Shortlist LA Times Book Award
2016 Shortlist British Publishing Award
2015 Longlist Man Booker

The Forgotten Waltz
2011 Winner Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
2011 Shortlist The Orange Prize (Women's Prize) 

The Gathering
2007 Winner Man Booker Prize for Fiction
2008 Winner Irish Novel of the Year
2008 Winner Listowel Irish Fiction Prize


Short story ‘Honey’
2004 Winner Davy Byrnes Award 

What Are You Like?
2001 Winner, Encore Award
2000 Shortlist, Whitbread Novel Award

The Wig My Father Wore
1995 Shortlist, Irish Times/Aer Lingus Irish Literature Prize

The Portable Virgin
1991 Winner Rooney Prize for Irish Literature