From the internet to historical stories: Meet the new female voices in Irish literature
L-R: writer Roisín Kiberd and poet Victoria Kennefick
ONE of the few pleasures unchanged by these sludgy times we inhabit is the joy of reading, and in particular the thrill of finding a new writer whose voice or take on the world speaks to us. Sometimes it’s a sense of recognition, a crevice in your soul being quietly filled up; other times it’s a giddy literary crush, the sort of infatuation that sees you become evangelical about a particular title. 2021 may be many things, but it’s not short on opportunities for this literary magic.
This year sees a continued surge in Irish women’s writing and a dismantling of any preconceived notions of what that phrase actually connotes. There’s more to these 2021 debuts than the misery of Peig Sayers or the college shenanigans of Sally Rooney’s characters - though there’s plenty of those things, too, as one would expect from today’s Irish writers.
