Irish Writers & the Creative Process

The theme was the creative process, successively studied in three literary genres: poetry, drama and the novel. Professor Genet selected two of the most famous representatives of each genre – Seamus Heaney and John Montague, Thomas Kilroy and Tom Murphy, John McGahern and John Banville – asking them to speak of their own creation: what happens in their minds during the birth and development of the creative work? A question that is far-reaching, abstruse and certainly indiscreet. To challenge the writers slightly more, she had placed in front of each of them a critic – Maurice Harmon, Augustine Martin, Christopher Murray, Lynda Henderson, John Cronin, Rudiger Imhof – each of whom expounded their own point of view on the same phenomenon. These inner and outer perspectives generally converged and their complementarity throws a vivid light on the mystery of artistic creation. That was the purpose of the meeting and also the aim of this book, which should be essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the creative process of writing.