Jennifer Johnston

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Jennifer Johnston (born January 12, 1930 in Dublin ) is an Irish writer .

Life

Johnston was born in 1930 to actress Shelah Richards and writer Denis Johnston ; she is a cousin of actress Geraldine Fitzgerald . Johnston attended Trinity College in Dublin and has long lived in Derry , Northern Ireland . As a member of the Church of Ireland , she reflects in much of her work on the decline in Protestant Anglo-Irish influence in Ireland in the 20th century.

The first novel submitted by Johnston was The Captains and the Kings in 1972 . Shadows on our Skin was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1977 , while she won the 1979 Whitbread Book Award for The Old Jest , her best-known novel set in the Irish War of Independence and later filmed as "The Dawning" .

Johnston's other novels include How Many Miles to Babylon? from 1974, which takes place in World War I and was later adapted as a play, The Invisible Worm from 1991 on the subject of sexualized violence and The Gingerbread Woman from 2000 about a widower who has lost his wife and child to terrorists. In addition to her novels, Johnston also writes plays and radio plays, including O Ananias, Azarias and Misael , published in 1990 among the “Best Radio Plays of 1989”; In 1989 she received the "Giles Cooper Award for Best Radio play". She is a member of Aosdána .

Johnston began writing relatively late in life. In an interview with Irish TV station RTÉ, she said that the success of her first book was more exciting for her than the birth of her first child.

Awards (selection)

  • 1977: Shortlist for the Booker Prize for Shadows on our Skin
  • 1979: Whitbread Book Award for The Old Jest
  • 1989: "Giles Cooper Award for Best Radio play"
  • 1992: Shortlist for “Daily Express best book of the year” for The Invisible Worm
  • 2006: Irish PEN Award
  • 2012: Irish Book Award for Lifetime Achievement

Works (selection)

Novels

  • The Captains and the Kings (1972)
  • The Gates (1973)
  • How Many Miles to Babylon? (1974)
  • Shadows on Our Skin (1977)
  • The Old Jest (1979)
  • The Christmas Tree (1981)
  • The Railway Station Man (1985)
  • Fool's Sanctuary (1988)
  • The Invisible Worm (1991)
  • The Illusionist (1995)
  • Two Moons (1998)
  • The Gingerbread Woman (2000)
  • This is not a novel (2002)
  • Grace and Truth (2005)
  • Foolish Mortals (2007)
  • Truth or Fiction (2009)
  • Shadowstory (2011)
  • Fathers and Son (2012)
  • A Sixpenny Song (2013)
  • Naming the Stars (2015)

Dramas and radio plays

  • The Nightingale and Not the Lark (1980)
  • Indian Summer (1983)
  • Andante and Poco Mosso (1983)
  • The Porch (1986)
  • O Ananias, Azarias and Misael (1989) - radio play
  • The Desert Lullaby: A Play in Two Acts (1996)
  • The Christmas Tree: A Play in Two Acts (2015)

Children's books

  • The Great Shark Escape (2001), illustrated by Ted Enik

Anthologies

Translations into German

Film adaptations

  • 1988: The stranger on the beach ( The dawning )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jennifer Johnston on contemporarywriters.com ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.contemporarywriters.com
  2. ↑ Jennifer Johnston on Irish Writers Online
  3. ↑ “Members” on aosdana.artscouncil.ie
  4. ↑ The Works Presents Jennifer Johnston | RTÉ One | Thursday 19th November | 11.15pm
personal data
SURNAME Johnston, Jennifer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Dublin , Ireland