Opportunity comes calling - Laureate For Irish Fiction

THIS has been a good week for book lovers. Despite an endless litany of woe — or gloating technocrats predicting the death of printed books — sales of hard copy books are resurgent.

This bringing together of 26 symbols, dead trees, cobalt and whatever humanity can imagine remains one of the great achievements of civilisation. In a parallel development, one that will comfort Luddites and romantics everywhere, it has been reported that sales of electronic readers, the devices that were to have been the final nail in the coffin for traditional books, have levelled out at less than 20% of the market.

That rejuvenation in traditional book consumption, that resurgence in the consideration of ideas, hopes and all of our human weaknesses and glories, can only be helped by last night’s appointment of Man Booker prize winner Anne Enright as the Inaugural Laureate For Irish Fiction for a three-year term. It is entirely appropriate that a country that is probably more widely known around the world for its writers than for any other reason should establish such an office and place it so centrally in our cultural life.