Video: John Banville in Conversation with Alan Gilsenan

Write By The Sea was honoured to welcome Booker-winning author John Banville and celebrated filmmaker Alan Gilsenan to the stage as part of our 2023 festival.

John Banville is a novelist, screenwriter, playwright and book reviewer. He worked in journalism for many years, and was literary editor at The Irish Times from 1988 to 2000. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and other journals.

His novels include The Book of Evidence, The Sea, and, most recently, The Singularities. Among the awards he has received are the Man Booker Prize, the Austrian State Prize for Literature, the Kafka Prize, Irish PEN Award and the Prince of Asturias Award. He has written a number of crime novels, including Snow, and, most recently, April in Spain. He was born in Wexford, and lives in Dublin.

Alan Gilsenan is an award-winning Irish writer, film-maker and theatre director.  His diverse body of film work extends across documentary, feature films and experimental work.

His many film productions include The Yellow Bittern: The Life & Times of Liam Clancy;  the feature film Unless; the experimental film A Vision: A Life of WB Yeats;  The Ghost of Roger Casement; the documentary series Daniel O’Connell: Forgotten King of Ireland, a film installation inspired by Joyce’s Ulysses for Dublin’s MOLI (Museum of Literature Ireland) entitled ULYSSES | FILM and – most recently –  Ghosts of Baggotonia, a film-poem that combines personal memory and the literary ghosts of bohemian Dublin.

John and Alan treated the audience to a warm, witty and charming conversion.

We’re pleased to be able to share a recording of their event.