Clare Boylan

Born and raised in Dublin, Clare Boylan forged a path for herself first as a successful journalist - she won the Benson & Hedges Award for outstanding journalism in 1974 -then as an acclaimed fiction writer. Her novels are Holy Pictures (1983), Last Resorts (1984), Black Baby (1988), Home Rule (1992) and Beloved Stranger (1999). Characterised by poignancy and humour, Boylan's works repeatedly explore familial relationships, especially among mothers and daughters. Her short stories are collected in A Nail on the Head (1983), Concerning Virgins (1990) and That Bad Woman (1995). In 2003, Boylan published Emma Brown, a book that continued a fragmentary manuscript Charlotte Brontë had abandoned in the 1850s. Clare Boylan was a member of Aosdána. She died of cancer in May 2006.