Multi-award-winning novelist Eimear McBride chats to literary critic (and Irish literature fan) David Collard in an informal, friendly tête-à-tête.
Speaking to the Festival theme of 'arrivals', David Collard and Eimear McBride will discuss Eimear’s latest novel — The City Changes its Face — and her recent film debut (as a director) A Very Short Film About Longing (currently available on BBC iPlayer). Eimear (born in Liverpool to Irish parents) moved with her family to Ireland as a toddler. Her arrival on the literary scene was a long time coming – it took nine-years to find a publisher for her first novel A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing. Subsequently she has been internationally lauded for her unique blend of experimentation and very contemporary female-centred storytelling.
The author of two additional novels The Lesser Bohemians and Strange Hotel, as well as the non-fiction work Something Out of Place: Women and Disgust, Eimear held the inaugural Creative Fellowship at the Beckett Research Centre (University of Reading), during which she wrote Mouthpieces; three short powerful plays on the female experience. Her debut directorial work A Very Short Film About Longing (DMC Films/BBC) screened at the 2023 London Film Festival. Eimear is the recipient of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Goldsmiths Prize, Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Kerry Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
David Collard is the author of About a Girl (CB Editions) and Multiple Joyce and A Crumpled Swan (both published by Sagging Meniscus) and writes for the Times Literary Supplement. He curates and hosts the weekly online salon The Glue Factory.
Recorded exclusively for #LIF2025, this is the first of a series of Festival-linked Literary Salons we will run with David in the coming years.
Image credit: Kat Green (detail only).
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