ANNE ENRIGHT - SHORTLISTED FOR ORANGE PRIZE

Our own Anne Enright is on the shortlist for the Orange Prize for her novel The Forgotten Waltz. She talked about it on Arena on Tuesday night and she was her usual wry, honest self. She is touring the book in the USA at the moment and she spoke about the difference between American and Irish audiences:

'The American audience can be quite intense. They are a very receptive and enthusiastic audience.' Presenter Seán Rocks asked her to expand on this, wondering about the differences between audiences. Anne said: 'The Irish audience knows you and wouldn’t want to annoy you with any intensities. The Irish are more relaxed.' This is true, I feel. Though Germany was about the (in)tensest place that I have read. Still, they all came up afterwards and bought the book. Irish people often say they loved your reading but don't buy the book...

She said of the Orange shortlisting: 'It’s a lovely validation and a great fillip for the book. Publishing is very nervous at the moment; literary fiction is on the back foot and anything that stirs the mix again and gets books out there into the public arena is good by me.' Hear hear.

Seán asked about her thoughts on the Orange being a women-only prize. Anne said, quite rightly: 'Statistics show that women’s writing is under-represented in the important media. The Orange Prize redresses the balance.' She cited Vida which measures the reviews/exposure in the media of women’s writing and said that the statistics speak for themselves. I love when a writer I admire gets involved in this debate.

She also said, with reference to the shortlist, which features three American writers (Patchett, Miller and Ozick): ‘American’s women fiction is so strikingly good.’ I feel that too, particularly about short story writers: a few that immediately spring to mind are Amy Bloom, Caitlin Horrocks, ZZ Packer and Valerie Trueblood.

Speaking of Valerie Trueblood, I'm pleased that an essay I wrote about her and her writing has made the shortlist of the Thresholds Feature Writing Competition. There's a shortlist of ten. It seems all ten may be published regardless of who is the overall winner. If that's the case I will link to here when my essay is featured.