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Appointed the first laureate for Irish fiction, the novelist was at first unsure what to make of the role. Trump’s election showed why women need a seat at the table
Donald Trump’s victory in November 2016 was preceded, in my home life, by the death of my father in early June. I lost a wonderful man from my life while the world gained a terrible one, and for many months I found it hard to look up to anyone who claimed to be in charge of anything, especially if they were male.
My father was a quiet man, gentle and smart, and an astute observer of his children. He could fix sleeplessness and toothache, he took temperatures, checked for appendicitis. There was no bombast or posturing. I am trying to find something negative to say about the man – he smoked non-stop and absented himself sometimes in deafness, but he was, by the world’s standards as well as by my own, a very good person; extremely slow to anger, a punner and puzzler, a lover of languages, with great independence of mind. Donal Enright was from County Clare: he never seemed to break any rules, and he never once did what he was told. Continue reading...