Man Booker winner and Ireland’s inaugural laureate for fiction Anne Enright and novelist Ruth Gilligan discuss the writing life at ILFDublin’s celebration of the trans-generational influence of writers on each other. Anne Enright published her first novel The Wig My Father Wore in 1995, the same year Bealtaine was founded. Her most recent is Actress, her long-awaited “theatre book”, which explores the dark side of show-business.

She reflects on her 25 years as a writer with author, journalist and university lecturer, Ruth Gilligan. Ruth Gilligan’s latest novel, The Butchers, is set against the BSE crisis in 1996, when Ireland was busy trying to cast off its old ways. Its compelling story pits folklore and tradition against  modern capitalism.

In conversation with novelist and playwright Declan Hughes, their reflections on starting and continuing the writing life are not to be missed.

Anne Enright & Ruth Gilligan: Standing On the Shoulders of Giants