Books are my business: Head of literature at the Arts Council

Sarah Bannan is responsible for every aspect of the Arts Council’s literature policy and strategy and its implementation, so her role is very varied 

Sarah Bannan: 'My favourite day of the year is probably when the literature bursaries are awarded: We offer €10,000, €15,000, and €20,000 to an individual writer to take time out and work on their creative practice.'

Sarah Bannan is head of literature at the Arts Council. Originally from New York, she has lived in Dublin since 2000; her novel Weightless was shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year in the Irish Book Awards.

How did you get into your career?

I studied English at Georgetown University in the US and I did my third year abroad at Trinity. I met my now husband when I was there — I fell in love with him, but I also fell in love with the contemporary Irish literary scene. 

So the summer between my third and fourth year of college, I got an internship at Lilliput Press. I finished my degree in the US, and then I came back to Ireland after I graduated. 

An entry-level temporary position came up in the Arts Council in late 2000 and I went for it.

Eventually I got a permanent job in the literature department and I worked in a variety of different roles in the organisation. 

I left for a stint in the Irish Film Institute and then I came back to become the head of literature in 2007. I’m in the role 17 years and I’ve been really lucky to witness how much the area has grown and developed.

What does your role involve?

I’m responsible for every aspect of the Arts Council’s literature policy and strategy and its implementation, so it is very varied. 

I have to stay up to date on all the new writing, and that can be hard to do during the week, so I read a lot over the weekend. 

This week, for example, I’ll be meeting a colleague to finalise recommendations for our festival investment scheme, as well as meeting with the literature advisor to talk about the current round of literature bursaries. 

I will also be meeting a number of the organisations who are in our strategic funding portfolio — organisations like Literature Ireland or the Irish Writers Centre. 

I’m also liaising with my colleagues on Culture Night, we’re doing a big project called Read More, which involves giving out free books. 

My colleague Audrey Keane and I are also putting finishing touches to the Art of Reading series with our laureate Colm Tóibín, which we’re running in partnership with Libraries Ireland. 

We have an event coming up with Paul Lynch, who won the Booker Prize. 

I will also be meeting with Children’s Books Ireland regarding our Children’s Laureate Patricia Forde. 

And then we have our advertisements going out for our writer-in-residence programmes this week. It’s great, it’s all so interesting.

What do you like most about what you do?

My favourite day of the year is probably when the literature bursaries are awarded: We offer €10,000, €15,000, and €20,000 to an individual writer to take time out and work on their creative practice. 

We might receive anywhere between 150 or over 200 applications for that per round. For the first panel this year, we awarded 46 bursaries, and then we’ll have another panel in late September. 

I can remember when Sally Rooney applied for funding with an excerpt from  Conversations with Friends — when you see a novel in print, knowing we helped along the way is very gratifying.

What do you like least about it?

Saying no to people, which is a flip side of the bursary. We’re never going to have enough money to award funding to everyone who deserves it. 

The only thing with being in the job so long is I know that things come around and hopefully there will be another chance for a writer along the way.

Three desert island books

You will have to let me take four. I would bring The Green Road by Anne
Enright. 

I’d happily take all of her novels or her story collections, but I love The Green Road because it’s pitch-perfect on a sentence level. 

I would also bring the poetry collection Up Late by Nick Laird. My son Ruairí died suddenly in February 2023, he was almost six, and it has been a really devastating and harrowing period in our lives. 

This collection deals with death in such a beautiful and profound way; Nick Laird wrote it after his father died of covid and I have turned to it over and over again. 

I heard Nick Laird read the title poem at the West Cork Literary Festival in 2022 and it moved me to tears then. 

But I hadn’t really known grief at that stage; when I returned to it, I thought, oh, he could be speaking on my behalf. I found it a really big help.

I would also bring The Steward of Christendom by Sebastian Barry; his prose is like poetry.

The last book would be What I Like Most by Mary Murphy, which I read to Ruairí many times. 

Both of my children, Niamh and Ruairí, love Mary Murphy’s books, but this one brings both my husband and me to tears every time we read it. 

When you’re a children’s picture book writer, you can’t waste a word, and Mary never wastes a word, it’s a beautiful book.