Louise O'Neill: Marian Keyes is a national treasure and we are lucky to have her

Louise O'Neill writes about her love for Irish author Marian Keyes

In my final year of college, I took a module on Jane Austen. The professor was exactly the sort of man I had imagined I would encounter at Trinity — he was eccentric, dryly funny, knowledgeable about his chosen subjects, and a compelling lecturer. One day, he told us a story about a programme he had been asked to contribute to as an expert on Austen’s novels. He had, he said, been given a list of contemporary novels written by women, “chick-lit” as we so derogatorily referred to them at the time, and he’d been asked to decide which modern author, if any, could claim to be the successor to Jane herself. Our professor hadn’t enjoyed any of those novels as much as he loved Austen, but he did compliment one author amongst the bunch. Marian Keyes, he said. She was very good.