Anne Enright – The Wren, The Wren

Booker prize winner, the first ever Laureate for Irish Fiction and the 2022 winner of the Irish Book Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award – Anne Enright’s achievements speak for themselves. And now the author of The Gathering and The Green Road is back with a new novel The Wren, the Wren – which examines the ever-fascinating mother and daughter relationship through the tale of Nell and Carmel.

When Nell falls into the wrong kind of relationship and leaves home, her mother Carmel is left alone once more, ruminating on a lifetime of choices and longing set against the influence of Nell’s father – a famous and distant Irish poet, a man of beautiful words and brutal actions. Described as “a reflection on love: spiritual, romantic, darkly sexual or familial” The Wren, the Wren examines the impact generational trauma can have, as well as the impact on the inherited sense of wonder. But first and foremost, The Wren, the Wren, looks at the deep, often painful and majestic love between a mother and daughter.

Join Enright in conversation with Max Porter about writing her new novel, life after winning The Booker Prize, why she finds Irish family dynamics so endlessly fascinating and why being the first ever Irish Laureate meant more to her than any other achievement in her career.