Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Louise Kennedy (writer)
Irish writer (born 1966/1967) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
Louise Kennedy (born 1966 or 1967)[1] is an Irish writer.
Early life and education
Kennedy grew up in Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland,[1] and, from the age of 12, in Dublin and Kildare.[2] She worked as a chef for 30 years before joining a creative writing group at a friend's insistence.[3] She has an MA and a PhD in creative writing from Queen's University Belfast.[2]
Writing
Kennedy's early short stories appeared in publications including The Stinging Fly, The Tangerine, Banshee, Wasafiri and Ambit.[2] She was shortlisted for the 2019 and 2020 Sunday Times Short Story Awards, for "In Silhouette" and "Sparing the Heather" respectively.[4][5]
Kennedy's first novel, Trespasses (2022), was shortlisted for the 2022 (inaugural) Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize[6] and the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction.[7] Kennedy has said that it is "a star-crossed love story set in a small town near Belfast in 1975, at the height of the time known as The Troubles".[1]
She published a book of short stories, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac, in 2023. They were described by Kirkus Reviews as "set in a contemporary Ireland divided by wealth and education".[8] The Guardian's reviewer called it a "dazzling, heartbreaking debut collection",[9] and the New York Journal of Books wrote of "deep-probing, slice-of-life stories seamlessly woven in stark vignettes without a filter".[10]
She has also written for The Guardian, The Irish Times, and BBC Radio 4.[11]
Remove ads
Personal life
Awards
Remove ads
Selected publications
- —— (2023). Trespasses. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781526623324.
- —— (2023). The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac (1st U.S. ed.). New York: Riverhead Books. ISBN 9780593540923.
References
Further reading
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads