Dermot Bolger

Dermot Bolger was born in Finglas, Dublin in 1959. He is a novelist, poet, playwright as well as the originator and editor of the bestselling collaborative novels Finbar's Hotel and Ladies Night at Finbar's Hotel, to which Roddy Doyle, Maeve Binchy, Joseph O'Connor, Emma Donoghue, Deirdre Purcell and Colm Tóibín contributed chapters (essays). He founded and edited The Raven Arts Press between 1979 and 1992, which became one of Ireland's most radical publishers, providing a platform for a whole generation of new Irish writers like Patrick McCabe, Colm Tóibín, Eoin Mcnamee and Sara Berkeley. Later, in 1992, he co-founded New Island Books and published Joseph O'Connor and Nuala O'Faolain, amongst others. 
Dermot Bolger is the author of thirteen novels, including The Journey Home, Father's Music, Temptation, The Valparaiso Voyage, The Family on Paradise Pier, Tanglewood, The Fall of Ireland and most recently The Lonely Sea and Sky. New Town Soul, his crossover novel for young adults is one of the novels that Irish students can choose to study for the Leaving certificate state exams. His novels have received the A.E. Memorial Prize and Macauley Fellowship, have been shortlisted for the Irish Times/Aer Lingus Fiction Prize and Hughes Fiction Prize and have been translated into many languages. His debut play, The Lament for Arthur Cleary (1989) received The Samuel Beckett Award and many of his plays have since won numerous awards, been staged in many countries and published in book form by Penguin, Methuen and others. Ballymun Trilogy, three plays about the birth, demolition and regeneration of a Dublin suburb, is published by New Island. His stage adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses has toured Ireland, Scotland and China. He has been Playwright in Association with Ireland's National theatre, the Abbey Theatre, and Writer Fellow in Trinity College, Dublin. Dermot Bolger is a member of Aosdána and lives in Dublin.