ILFDublin Podcast

Off The Page - Omar El Akkad in conversation with Alex Clark

Today, we’re bringing you an exclusive recording of Omar El Akkad in conversation with Alex Clark at our recent #OffThePage event at the Pepper Canister Church on February 13, 2025.

From the Archives: Kirsty Bell (2022)

The ILFD podcast is back! For our final episode of 2023, as many of us head home for the winter holidays, we're listening back to Kirsty Bell discuss her book 'The Undercurrents', an exploration of the city she calls home -- Berlin. __ Kirsty Bell’s 'The Undercurrents' is a story of Berlin, fusing memoir and criticism through a succession of lives and experiences grounded in one historic building by the Landwehr Canal. Both a cultural history of Berlin, and a portrait of artists that have inhabited this beguiling city, Bell’s poetic work, reveals layers of history and the centrality of landscape to the human soul. A book which reflects our contemporary fascination with urban places, and explores ideas of belonging, Kirsty will be in conversation with the critic Helen Meany. __ Kirsty Bell is a British-American writer and art critic, a prolific figure in contemporary art production. She lives in Berlin. __ ‘As in other classics of urban discovery, the personal becomes universal, and the past that demands to live in the present is revealed like a shining new reef. As we return, time and again, to the solitary figure at the window’— Iain Sinclair on The Undercurrents __ Presented in association with the Goethe Institut in Ireland at the 2022 International Literature Festival Dublin.

From the Archives: Paul Lynch & Peter Murphy (2013)

The ILFD podcast is back! In case you missed it, this year's Booker Prize winner is Irish author Paul Lynch — we thought there would be no better time to listen back to his 2013 visit to the festival. ___ Dublin Writers Festival brings together two emerging Irish novelists whose distinctive prose style and strong sense of place has marked them out as writers to watch. 'John the Revelator', Peter Murphy’s “remarkable debut” (The Observer) about the frustrations of a provincial adolescence, was met with instant acclaim and shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the Kerry Group Fiction Award. A musician and long-time contributor to Hot Press, Murphy’s prose is celebrated for its lyricism and rhythmic power, and it’s fitting that the idea for his new novel came from an interview with the Manic Street Preachers. 'Shall We Gather at the River' introduces Enoch O’Reilly, an Elvis impersonator and ‘radiovangelist’ in Murn, Co. Wexford, a small town threatened by a great flood. Mixing dark themes with surprising comic turns, 'Shall We Gather at the River' is a compelling follow-up from an extraordinary talent. Film critic Paul Lynch’s debut novel 'Red Sky in Morning' has created quite a stir in the publishing world. Inspired by a horrific incident in Philadelphia in 1832 in which 57 Irish railroad workers were killed, the novel tells the story of Coll Coyle, who flees his home in Inishowen, Donegal after killing a man, and is pursued all the way to America, where a greater tragedy awaits. Written in a taut, lyrical prose reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy and set against the epic backdrops of Donegal and Pennsylvania, 'Red Sky in Morning' marks the emergence of an exciting new talent. ___ International Literature Festival Dublin is a Dublin City Council Initiative kindly supported by the Arts Council. Find out more at ilfdublin.com

From the Archives: Eoin Colfer (2023)

The ILFD podcast is back! On Monday 20 November, we celebrated World Children's Day, so today we're listening back to an event with one of our favourite children's authors — Eoin Colfer. From the 2023 edition of the festival. ___ Whether he’s cloud gazing or saving the world, author Eoin Colfer has so many stories up his sleeve, it’s a wonder they don’t all fall out! Expect stellar storytelling and endless jokes as we get inside the mind of the mastermind behind the criminal escapades of Artemis Fowl, the heartwarming story of Starr in Little Big Sister, and so much more. ___ Eoin Colfer is a Wexford-born writer. He published his first book, Benny and Omar in 1998, and hasn’t stopped since! His now infamous Artemis Fowl series continues apace and he loves collaborating with artists and illustrators on picture books and graphic novels. He was Ireland’s Children’s Laureate between 2014 and 2016, and still wears the medal, even in the bath. ___ International Literature Festival Dublin is a Dublin City Council Initiative kindly supported by the Arts Council. Find out more at ilfdublin.com

From the Archives: Neil Gaiman (2018)

The ILFD podcast is back! Award-winning writer Neil Gaiman celebrates his birthday later this week, so let's listen back to his last visit to ILFD in 2018. ___ What doesn’t Neil Gaiman write? One of the greatest living storytellers, he is the author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and movies, including The Sandman comic book series, Stardust, American Gods, and Coraline. Among many, many awards, he has won both the Newbery and Carnegie Medals. Described by the Guardian as a ‘a thesaurus of myth’, his book Norse Mythology is a suspenseful and dazzling retelling of the Norse myths. Enjoy an evening with the man who said, ‘stories are incredibly long- lived... We have children of flesh and blood... but we also have children of stories, and that’s immortality, of a kind’! Chaired by journalist and broadcaster Patrick Freyne. ___ ‘I don’t think I’m mainstream. I think what I am is lots and lots of different cults. And when you get lots and lots of small groups who like you a lot, they add up to a big group without ever actually becoming mainstream.’ - Neil Gaiman in The Guardian ___ International Literature Festival Dublin is a Dublin City Council Initiative kindly supported by the Arts Council. Find out more at ilfdublin.com