Doireann Ní Ghríofa
“Ní Ghríofa is deeply attuned to the gaps, silences and mysteries in women’s lives” – New York Times
Doireann Ní Ghríofa is a bilingual Irish writer devoted to exploring how the past makes itself felt in the present. Her book A Ghost in the Throat saw an 18th-century poet haunting a young mother, leading her through visions of blood, milk, lust, and murder. Written on the rooftop of a car-park in Ireland, it went on to be described as “powerful” (New York Times) and “captivatingly original” (The Guardian); the US edition was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and a New York Times Notable Book of 2021. Doireann has also written several critically-acclaimed books of poetry in both Irish and English, each a deepening exploration of birth, death, desire, and domesticity. Awards for her writing include a Lannan Literary Fellowship (USA), the Ostana Prize (Italy), and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Her new and selected poems, titled Lunulae, will be published by Wake Forest University Press in 2024.
Author photo by Bríd O’Donovan
Praise for Doireann Ní Ghríofa
“Ní Ghríofa is a poet through and through.” – New York Review of Books
“In the work of the Irish writer Doireann Ní Ghríofa, history is amorphous, a living thing that frequently bleeds into or interrupts the lives of those in the present day.” – The Paris Review
“[Her] poems excel in their consideration of motherhood, particularly its paradoxical losses and gains, separation and unity… long-considered obsessions are explored with tenderness and unflinching curiosity.” – Poetry Magazine (Chicago)
“Like [Eavan] Boland, Ní Ghríofa constructs a mysterious world for her readers from the matter of ordinary life. The poems… impress upon us that magic and depth can be found in the minutiae of the everyday.” – Poetry Ireland Review
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