Interview and Film Screening

Venue: YouTube
Cost: Free/Donate  BOOK NOW

Since his landmark debut collection, There Are Little Kingdoms, and its award-winning sequel in 2012, Dark Lies the Island, Kevin Barry has been acclaimed as one of the world’s most accomplished and gifted short story writers.

Kevin Barry is the author of three novels and three short story collections. His awards include the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award and the Lannan Foundation Literary Award. His latest novel, Night Boat to Tangier, was an Irish number one bestseller, was longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. His stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta and elsewhere. Kevin appears at the festival with his new short story collection That Old Country Music (2020, Canongate). In this rapturous third collection, we encounter a ragbag of west of Ireland characters, many on the cusp between love and catastrophe, heartbreak and epiphany, resignation and hope. These stories show an Ireland in a condition of great flux but also as a place where older rhythms, and an older magic, somehow persist.

Artistic Director Dani Gill will talk to Kevin about his newest collection, followed by a short film of the title story, made by artist and filmmaker, Laura Sheeran.

Praise for That Old Country Music:

“One of the best collections you’ll read this year”

“Wild, witty stories…Exhilarating”

This event is kindly supported by St Francis Credit Union