John McGahern: A Writing Life

The Dock and The Reading Room Bookshop are pleased to present the national launch of John McGahern: A Writing Life by Frank Shovlin, a major new biography of one of Ireland’s most important writers. Frank Shovlin will be in conversation with Sinéad Gleeson.

Drawing on decades of research, extensive interviews, and previously unseen archival material, Shovlin’s biography offers a rich and detailed portrait of John McGahern’s life and work. The book traces the experiences and relationships that shaped McGahern’s writing and places his work in a wider Irish and international context.

Widely regarded as one of the defining Irish writers of the post-war period, McGahern’s work continues to resonate with readers for its precision and emotional depth, as well as the profound attention to family, place, and memory. This new biography opens up the life behind the writing, exploring both the public reputation and the more private figure behind it.

Frank Shovlin is a distinguished McGahern scholar whose work has included major research on the writer’s life and letters. Sinéad Gleeson has frequently explored McGahern’s legacy through The Book Show on RTÉ Radio 1, and recently marking the twentieth anniversary of his death at The Dock. This promises to be a compelling evening of reading and conversation.

Frank Shovlin is from the West of Ireland and is a graduate of University College Galway and the University of Oxford. He is Professor of Irish Literature in English at the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool, and is author of several books on Irish literature, including The Irish Literary Periodical 1923-1958 (Oxford, 2003) and Touchstones: John McGahern's Classical Style (Liverpool, 2016). His edition of The Letters of John McGahern was published by Faber to critical acclaim in 2021.

Sinéad Gleeson’s essay collection Constellations: Reflections from Life won Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, the Dalkey Literary Award for Emerging Writer and was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Michel Déon Prize. She is the editor of the award-winning anthologies The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers and The Glass Shore, as well as The Art of The Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories. In 2022, she co-edited This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music with Kim Gordon. Sinéad also collaborates with artists and musicians on performance and sound installations. Her work has been translated into several languages and her debut novel Hagstone was published in 2024 by 4th Estate.