Authors John Boyne and Kit de Waal will give a joint reading on Thursday, April 27 as part of the Cúirt Literary Festival, which takes place from April 23-30. Both writers address the resilience of children who are dealing with hostile environments created by adults.
John Boyne’s best-known book is his multi-award-winning novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. His latest novel is The Heart’s Invisible Furies, which opens in a village in Cork in the 1950s, where an unmarried mother is publicly shamed and banished from the parish by a priest who has fathered two children. The novel tracks the woman’s child through to adulthood in the marriage referendum in modern Ireland.
Kit de Waal’s debut novel novel My Name is Leon tells the story of a child’s struggle to keep his family together in 1980s Conservative England. This is a climate where racism is both institutionalised and within the family. The best-selling My Name is Leon was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award.
It has also been nominated for the Kerry Group Novel of the Year Award 2017, alongside Nothing on Earth by Conor O’Callaghan (who’s also reading at Cúirt). AL Kennedy, another Cúirt participant, is judging and the winner will be announced during Listowel Writers Week.
