The Arts Council has announced the appointment of Aosdána and Tosciareacht member Éilís Ní Dhuibhne as the Laureate for Irish Fiction 2025 – 2028. The Laureateship has previously been held by Aosdána members Colm Tóibín (2022 – 2024), Sebastian Barry (2018-2021) and the inaugural Laureate, Anne Enright (2015-2018).
The Laureate for Irish Fiction is an initiative of the Arts Council. The role seeks to acknowledge the contribution of fiction writers to Irish artistic and cultural life by honouring an established Irish writer of fiction, encouraging a new generation of writers, promoting Irish literature nationally and internationally and encouraging the public to engage with high quality Irish fiction.
Welcoming Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s appointment, Chair of the Arts Council, Maura McGrath, said:
“The Arts Council is very proud to award Éilís Ní Dhuibhne the honour of Laureate for Irish Fiction from 2025 to 2028. Her novels and short stories, published in both English and Irish, have rightly earned her critical acclaim and a devoted readership. We know she will bring remarkable vitality and deep understanding to the role of Laureate for Irish Fiction, building on the great work of her predecessors.”
Commenting on her appointment, incoming Laureate for Irish Fiction Éilís Ní Dhuibhne said:
“I am absolutely delighted, very pleasantly surprised, and highly honoured to be offered the Laureateship in Irish Fiction. I feel lucky. Why me? Many writers deserve the accolade.
So, after the first stunned few days, I am considering how to be an active and creative Laureate. Writing is something you do in privacy and solitude of course, but it always has an obvious public face. It moves from the inside of the writer’s head, from their room or laptop or whatever, to the book or the screen. It’s published.
And while the actual writing is a ‘solitary’ task, it generally has a social aspect in the more regular sense. Writers belong to their own community, and to the community of writers. All my life I have been meeting writers at book launches, classes, festivals, and in the writers’ group I’ve belonged to for almost forty years.”
She added: “The Laureateship is mainly a public role. The role allows time for writing – I think that would be essential. But it’s about reaching out, and representing reading and writing, readers and writers. So I am pondering ways of fulfilling this public side of the role, and have come up with dozens of ideas.”
Speaking about the choice, Norwegian-Irish journalist, writer and member of the international selection panel Mariella Frostrup said:
“I’m so excited by the appointment of Éilís Ní Dhuibhne as Laureate for Irish Fiction. It’s a welcome opportunity to acknowledge and highlight a remarkable writing career, encompassing short stories, novels and non-fiction and also to celebrate her valuable contribution to Gaelic via her bi-lingual prose.
Her short stories, novels and non-fiction profoundly speak to the female experience while dealing with universal themes of aspiration, disappointment, love, jealousy, hope and human inadequacy – often with a hefty ladle of humour thrown in!
As a teacher of creative writing, she’s shown a deft ability to inspire writers and readers alike, adding to her credentials for this new public-facing role. I’m delighted that her wonderful books will now be introduced to an even wider audience and very much looking forward to the programme of activity that she will lead during her term as Laureate.”
The over-arching theme of Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s Laureateship will be ‘The Island of Imagination’, exploring the question of “what makes a good story?”, as well as celebrating fiction in the Irish language and other European languages.
The Laureate will be in conversation with Niall MacMonagle at a free public event in the National Library, Dublin, on Tuesday 16 September at 7pm. Booking details will be published shortly on the Arts Council’s website.
Further details about the Laureate for Irish Fiction’s plans for their term, including the annual Laureate for Irish Fiction lecture, will be shared in due course.
For the latest information, visit www.artscouncil.ie or sign up to the monthly Laureate for Irish Fiction newsletter.