Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today is a novelist whose Hall of International Awards, including a prestigious Booker

Prize, is testament to her status as one of the most admired contemporary writers of fiction

in the English language. Anne Enwrites eight novels dig deep into the dynamics of family,

motherhood, marriage and sexuality. They are in some ways a response and a reaction to an Irish literary

culture historically dominated by men and the male perspective. Enright describes herself as a feminist,

but her fiction is not overtly political. Ireland's troubled history with Britain and the cultural

dominance of the Catholic Church are in the background rather than the forefront of her stories.

It is the emotional inner life of complex characters which she

portrays so vividly and which has won her loyal readers all over the world. So to what extent does she

see herself as a quintessentially Irish storyteller? Well, she joins me now. Anne Inwright, welcome to Hard Talk. Nice to be here.

Well, it's great to have you here. Now, to an outsider, you do seem like a deeply rooted writer.

That sounds so dull, doesn't it? Yeah, no, I should have gone places and done things. And did a little but yeah I returned to Ireland

but would you acknowledge that those routes are hugely important to you I passed the building

where I was born when I go into town so it's it is it is quite close yeah it's fascinating because

just the other day I interviewed a Colombian novelist and he said to me,

I only really was able to write about my country and the things that really mattered to me when I left it.

When I had a little bit of space and distance and freedom to actually express what I really thought,

but you've always felt free enough from within.

Or foolish enough, one or the other, to say whatever I wanted to say at any given time.

Yeah.

I think it was difficult in the deep past for writers to write from within the country.

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