WRITER PROFILE

Theo Dorgan interviews Jennifer Johnston, long a respected figure on the literary landscape in Ireland, the author of ' The Captain And The Kings', 'How Many Miles To Babylon', and 'Invisible Women' to name but a few.

In this interview Jennifer talks candidly and movingly about coming from a distinguished artistic family and how this affected her. Her father was the playwright, Denis Johnston and her mother, the glamorous and talented actress Sheila Richards. She remembers that "my education was spent hiding in theatres watching rehearsals for plays my mother was in".

She felt that she was a late starter in writing, as her first novel was not published until she was thirty years of age. The novel, 'The Captain And The Kings' won an Evening Standard Award and she was catapulted on her way.

Since then she has published many novels and is widely considered to be a delicately skilful writer with a great ear and eye for the nuances of the changing landscape of Ireland where the old Anglo-Irish certainties came to an end and were replaced by a modern, sometimes confusing new society.

Jennifer tells Theo "writing for me is a terrifying experience, after finishing a work I feel I should go to a sanatorium for six months". Throughout her career she has never been afraid to take on difficult subjects and explores this in some detail with Theo as she explains how upset she was writing 'The Invisible Worm' which revolves around the rape of a girl by her father.

Her novels deal a lot with the frailty of friendship and love and have been described as assured, comic and mutedly sad. This interview takes place on the publication of Jennifer's book 'The Moons' and she tells Theo how the first stirrings of the book came to her one day, "I have a voice, a serious, real voice in my head. I have an angel, not just in my head, he came into the room and in his Italian accent he said "write about me".


Biographical Details

Jennifer Johnston was born in Dublin in 1930.

Her novels have been published in many countries. Her main works are the novels 'The Captains and the Kings' (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1972); 'The Gates' (Hamish Hamilton, 1973); 'How Many Miles to Babylon?' (Hamish Hamilton, 1974); 'Shadows on our Skin' (Hamish Hamilton, 1977); 'The Old Jest' (Hamish Hamilton 1979); 'The Christmas Tree'; 'The Railway Station Man' (Hamish Hamilton, 1984); Fools Sanctuary; 'The Invisible Worm' (London, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1991); 'The Illusionist' (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995): 'Two Moons' (London, Review, 1998); and 'The Gingerbread Woman'(Review, 2000).

Her drama includes the short plays: 'Three Monologues'; and 'The Nightingale and Not the Lark', published by Raven Arts Press, Dublin.

She has received many awards, including the Robert Pitman Award; the Yorkshire Post Award; the 1979 Whitbread Award for The Old Jest; the Giles Cooper Award for Best Radio play (1989).

Her work was shortlisted for Daily Express best book of the year 1992 for 'The Invisible Worm', and 'Shadows on our Skin' was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Jennifer Johnston's latest novel is 'Two Moons' (London, Review [Headline Publishing], 1998). She is a member of Aosdána and lives in Derry.


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Running Time: 30mins
Year Made: 2000
Price: €20 - PAL (European), €30 - NTSC (US) plus P&P