From left, Dublin-born writers Anne Griffin, Sinead Gleeson and Ronan Hession and Irish Ambassador to Korea Michelle Winthrop take part in a book talk at the Seoul Metropolitan Library, Oct. 26, staged as part of the two-day Ireland Literature Festival Korea 2024. Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol By Park Han-sol The island of Ireland has 7 million people living on it.
Its a small place that can be driven across in a matter of hours. However, the Republic of Ireland — which makes up the majority of it — has produced numerous Nobel laureates and some of the world's most cherished novelists and playwrights, including James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, and Samuel Beckett. Today, a string of women writers, both established and emerging, like Claire Keegan and Sally Rooney, are also making a powerful mark on the global publishing scene.
So, what has led this country to become one of the world's most vibrant centers for literature? “Brilliant Irish writer Kevin Barry once said the reason there are so many writers in Ireland is because it rains 300 days of the year, and they’re all inside writing books or reading them,” remarked Dublin-based Sinead Gleeson with a smile on Saturday evening at the Seoul Metropolitan Library. Gleeson, the author of “Constellations: Reflections from Life,” a profound essay collection on body and womanhood that was translated into Korean this year, joined two other novelists from her home country — Anne G.