Writers@Grinnell - Hugo Hamilton

Best-selling Irish author Hugo Hamilton, will read from his work on Thursday, April 12, as a part of the Writers@Grinnell series. The event, which is free and open to the public, will 

Hamilton is author of the best-seller, The Speckled People, a German-Irish memoir of his experience growing up in Dublin with a fervent Irish nationalist father and a German mother whose family opposed the Nazis and who came to Ireland in the aftermath of World War II. The book has been praised by Colm Tóibín as a “masterpiece” and an “instant classic” by Colum McCann. Hamilton’s account of a family locked in a “language war” in which his father prohibited the use of English in the home, but permitted Irish and German, addresses all the “great issues of the 20th century,” according to the late Nuala O Faolain, an Irish journalist, writer, and book reviewer.

Translations of The Speckled People won the prestigious Prix Femina étranger in France, as well as the Berto Prize in Italy. The memoir also appeared on The New York Times’ notable books list. Hamilton’s equally rich and compelling second memoir, The Sailor in the Wardrobe, continues the story of his complex dual upbringing, and has also been widely praised as an “enchanting piece of work” by critic Terry Eagleton.

In addition to his memoirs, which have been transformed into screenplays and performed in Dublin theatre venues, Hamilton has written six acclaimed novels and a collection of short stories, all of which reflect on the compelling issues of cultural divisions and belonging.

Hugo Hamilton is currently teaching short course ENG 295-02 - Contemporary Irish Fiction.

This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Global Engagement.