fiction.wikisort.org - Writer

Claire Keegan (born 1968) is an Irish writer known for her award-winning short stories. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, Granta, and The Paris Review; and translated into 20 languages.[1][2]

Claire Keegan
Born	1968 (age 53–54) County Wicklow, Ireland
Occupation	Short story writer
Notable works	Antarctica Walk the Blue Fields Foster Small Things Like These
Notable awards	Rooney Prize for Irish Literature 2000 Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award 2009
Website
ckfictionclinic.com

Biography

Born in County Wicklow in 1968, she is the youngest of a large Roman Catholic family. Keegan traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana when she was seventeen and studied English and Political Science at Loyola University. She returned to Ireland in 1992, and later lived for a year in Cardiff, Wales, where she undertook an MA in creative writing and taught undergraduates at the University of Wales. She subsequently received an M.Phil at Trinity College Dublin.[3]

Keegan's first collection of short stories, Antarctica (1999), won many awards, including the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the William Trevor Prize, and was one of the Los Angeles Times "Best Books of 2001".[4][5] Her second collection of much-awarded short stories, Walk the Blue Fields, was published in 2007. Keegan's acclaimed 'long, short story'[6] Foster won the 2009 Davy Byrnes Short Story Award where award judge Richard Ford, who selected Foster as the winner, wrote of Keegan's “thrilling” instinct for the right words and her “patient attention to life's vast consequence and finality.”[7] Foster appeared in the February 15, 2010 issue of the New Yorker and was listed in that publication's "Best of the Year" list; it was later published by Faber and Faber in longer form. Foster is now included as a text for the Irish Leaving Certificate.[8] Foster was adapted for film in 2021 and released as the acclaimed[9] An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl) in May 2022.

In late 2021, Keegan published another novella, Small Things Like These, described as "a timely and powerful book", set in Ireland in the mid-1980s.[6][10] It was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.[11]

Keegan lives in rural Ireland.

List of works

• 1999 – Antarctica
• 2007 – Walk the Blue Fields
• 2010 – Foster
• 2021 - Small Things Like These

Awards and honours

Keegan has won the inaugural William Trevor Prize,[12] the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature,[12] the Olive Cook Award and the Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award 2009.[12] Other awards include the Hugh Leonard Bursary, the Macaulay Fellowship,[12] the Martin Healy Prize, the Kilkenny Prize and the Tom Gallon Award. She was also a 2002 Wingate Scholar and a two-time recipient of the Francis MacManus Award. She was a visiting professor at Villanova University in 2008. Keegan was the Ireland Fund Artist-in-Residence in the Celtic Studies Department of St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto in March 2009.[13] In 2019, she was appointed as Writing Fellow at Trinity College Dublin.[14] Pembroke College Cambridge and Trinity College Dublin selected Keegan as the 2021 Briena Staunton Visiting Fellow.[15] The French translation of Small Things Like These (Ce genre de petites choses) has been shortlisted for two prestigious awards: the Francophonie Ambassadors' Literary Award[16] and the Grand Prix de L'Heroine Madame Figaro.[17] In March 2021, Claire and her French translator, Jacqueline Odin, won the Francophonie Ambassadors' Literary Award.[18] Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and is the shortest book recognized in the history of the prize.[19]

Claire has been a member of Aosdána since 2008.[20][21]

References

External links

• Claire Keegan at Aosdána
• "Claire Keegan: 'Short stories are limited. I'm cornered into writing what I can'", Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 5 September 2010
• A copy of Foster and a recording of its abridged version by Evanna Lynch

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