Please join the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, the English Department, and the Creative Writing Program for a public conversation on the global reach and significance of Irish literature with Writer-in-Residence Michael Magee and Critic-in-Residence Radvan Markus.
About Michael Magee
Michael Magee is from Belfast. His debut novel, Close to Home, was published by Hamish Hamilton (UK) and FSG (US). It won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the John McGahern Prize, and the Nero Award for Debut Fiction. It was also named Waterstones Irish Book of the Year and has been translated into eight languages, including French, German, and Spanish.
Magee was also shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Newcomer of the Year 2023, and The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. Close to Home was shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2023, the Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, and the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award. It was also longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Diverse Book Awards.
He is the inaugural Irish Writer-in-Residence at the University of Notre Dame, on campus for the 2025-26 academic year.
About Radvan Markus
Radvan Markus is associate professor in the Irish language and literature at Charles University, Prague. He is the author of Carnabhal na Marbh: Cré na Cille agus Litríocht an Domhain (2023), which was awarded the ACIS Prize for Books in the Irish Language, and Echoes of the Rebellion: The Year 1798 in Twentieth-Century Irish Fiction and Drama (2015). He has published widely on modern(ist) Irish-language prose and drama, focusing on the work of Pádraic Ó Conaire, Micheál Mac Liammóir, Flann O’Brien, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Biddy Jenkinson and others. He also translates from Irish to Czech, his translation of Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s Cré na Cille won the prestigious Magnesia Litera award in 2018. His current research interests include the representations of nature in Irish-language literature of all periods. Apart from his academic work, he is also an active musician, performing Irish traditional music in the band Conamara Chaos, founded in 2017.
He is the inaugural Irish Critic-in-Residence at the University of Notre Dame, on campus for the spring 2026 semester.
Originally published at irishstudies.nd.edu.