Writing the Unspeakable Gaea Schoeters and Audrey Magee in conversation with Neil Hegarty
In Partnership with Literature Ireland
Can fiction allow writers and their readers to grapple with the worst of human behaviours? Through their writing, Gaea Schoeters and Audrey Magee have both explored historical and imagined instances of extreme cruelty and its devastating moral consequences. In today’s world, has the normalisation of violence and the assignation of colonization to the past inured us all to the most abject of behaviours? Join the authors in conversation with author and literary critic, Neil Hegarty.
This event is part of First Fridays at MoLI. Book tickets here.
© Annelies Van Parys
Gaea Schoeters is a writer, screenwriter, librettist and journalist from Belgium. She made her debut with the travel book Girls, Muslims and Motorcycles about a seven-month motorcycle trip through Iran, Central Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. This was followed by the novels Diggers (Manteau), The art of falling (De Bezige Bij) and Untitled #1 (Querido) and the interview-collection Het Einde (Polis). Her latest novel, Trophy (Querido), won the Sabam Prize for literature and is forthcoming in over ten languages. In collaboration with Johanna Pas, she translates Kae Tempest into Dutch. Gaea wrote several award-winning operas and music theatre pieces with composer Annelies Van Parys; their work has been performed at venues such as Biennale Venice, Folkoperan Stockholm, Deutsche Oper, and Operadagen Rotterdam.
Audrey Magee was born in Ireland and lives in Wicklow. She worked for twelve years as a journalist and has written for, among others, The Times, The Irish Times, the Observer and the Guardian. Her first novel, The Undertaking (Atlantic Books), was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, for the Festival du Premier Roman in France and for the Irish Book Awards. Audrey’s second novel, The Colony (Faber & Faber), was first published in 2022 and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. The Colony was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and has been translated into ten languages.
Neil Hegarty grew up in Derry. His novels include The Jewel; and Inch Levels, which was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Novel of the Year award. Neil’s non-fiction titles include the biography Frost: That Was the Life That Was, and The Story of Ireland, which accompanies the RTE-BBC television history of Ireland. His short fiction and essays have appeared in the Dublin Review, Stinging Fly, Cyphers, Tangerine, Banshee, and elsewhere; and he is co-editor of the essay collection Impermanence, which has been adapted for radio by RTE. He is a regular literary reviewer on the Irish Times.