Lannan Foundation

John McGahern was born in Dublin in 1934 and resides in County Leitrim, Ireland. Generally considered by critics to be one of his country's greatest living writers, McGahern is the author of five novels, which include the celebrated Amongst Women, published in 1990, and four collections of short stories. In his most recent novel, By the Lake, he writes of life in a close-knit Irish rural community where, "the days disappear in the attendance of small tasks." Of McGahern Irish poet and literary critic Seamus Deane says, "At last an Irish author has awakened from the nightmare of history and given us a sense of liberation which is not dependent on flight or emigration or escape."

John McGahern Bio and Cross Links

Hermione Lee, a critic and biographer, is the author of several books including The Novels of Virgina Wolf and Willa Cather: A Life Saved Up. She is a professor of English Literature at New College, Oxford. A past judge for the Booker Prize for Fiction, Lee presented England's Channel 4 Television's first book program, Book Four, from 1982-1984, and is currently a regular broadcaster for BBC radio and a reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement.

Hermione Lee Bio and Cross Links