Irish playwright Marina Carr wins $165,000 literary prize

Culture
03 Mar 17

Irish playwright Marina Carr, famed for writing The Mai in 1995, has won one of the world’s must high-paid literary honours, the Windham-Campbell Prize, worth $165,000 (€155,000).

Carr, who recently adapted Tolstoy's Anna Kerenina for The Abbey Theatre, is a lecturer in Dublin City University’s School of English.

Marina Carr has written over a dozen critically acclaimed plays and was born in Dublin in 1964 to the playwright Hugh Carr and Irish language poet Maura Eibhlín Breathneach.

She made her name with The Mai, the first in a trilogy of plays inspired by Ancient Greek theatre and set in the midlands. This was followed by its successors, Portia Coughlin (1996) and By the Bog of Cats (1998), which won the Irish Times/EST award for best new play.

The Windham-Campbell prizes, administered by the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, were established in 2013. They recognise exceptional writers of fiction, non-fiction and drama in the English language.

Fellow Irish playwright Abbie Spallen became the first Irish winner of the award last year.

We've spoken to Marina Carr several times in the past and had some illuminating interviews. In this particular interview, the playwright shared her feelings about lacking confidence with Joe Jackson. An interesting thought, given the events of today.

Read our interview with Marina Carr here.