An Arrow in Flight

Mary Lavin’s stories are patient, knowing, richly discriminating and wonderfully memorable. They're important work

Mary Lavin’s stories are patient, knowing, richly discriminating and wonderfully memorable. They're important work

She is, to come right out with it, magnificent

She reminds us…what literature is about

Mary Lavin’s stories are a delight. They are delicate, but not too delicate to carry tragedy on one shoulder and comedy on the other

She fascinates me more than any other of the Irish writers of my generation

Mary Lavin is keeping the stronghold of the Irish story in first-rate repair

Mary Lavin's prose has the simplicity and glow of time-polished wood

Caustic and also lyrical, she sees Ireland, even in its most obscure aspects, with a visionary penetration

[Lavin] writes like a dream

These sombre and skilfully written stories describe the tragic dilemmas with which character and nature confront humans everywhere

Mary Lavin (Author)
Mary Lavin was an award-winning writer best known for her short stories. Born in East Walpole, Massachusetts, to Irish parents, she returned to live in Ireland as a child and spent most of her life in County Meath, where many of her stories are set. She was a writer under contract to the New Yorker magazine and received many honours, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, a number of Guggenheim Fellowships and an honorary doctorate the National University of Ireland. She received the title of Saoi from Aosdána and is the first woman writer to have a public space named after her in Dublin.

Colm Toibin (Introducer)
Colm Toibin was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of two novels, The South , which won The Irish Times /Aer Lingus Prize, and The Heather Blazing , which won the Encore Prize for the best second novel published in Britain in 1992, as well as two travel books, Homage to Barcelona and The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe . He lives in Dublin.

Mary Lavin (Author)
Mary Lavin was an award-winning writer best known for her short stories. Born in East Walpole, Massachusetts, to Irish parents, she returned to live in Ireland as a child and spent most of her life in County Meath, where many of her stories are set. She was a writer under contract to the New Yorker magazine and received many honours, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, a number of Guggenheim Fellowships and an honorary doctorate the National University of Ireland. She received the title of Saoi from Aosdána and is the first woman writer to have a public space named after her in Dublin.

Colm Toibin (Introducer)
Colm Toibin was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of two novels, The South , which won The Irish Times /Aer Lingus Prize, and The Heather Blazing , which won the Encore Prize for the best second novel published in Britain in 1992, as well as two travel books, Homage to Barcelona and The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe . He lives in Dublin.