MAURICE LEITCH
Maurice Leitch is author of The Liberty Lad, Poor Lazarus, Silver's City and many other works. In 1969, he moved to London from his native Northern Ireland to become a producer in the BBC's radio drama department. In 1977 he became Editor of A Book at Bedtime on Radio Four until leaving in 1989 to write full-time.
Rated by Robert McLiam Wilson, as ‘perhaps the finest Irish novelist of his generation’ he was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1969 for Liberty Lad and won the Whitbread Prize in 1981 for his novel Silver's City. In addition he has written over twenty television and radio plays and is a winner of the Golden Harp Award.
In 1999 Maurice Leitch was awarded an MBE for services to literature
LATEST BOOK: DINING AT THE DUNBAR
Dining at the Dunbar sees the celebrated Northern Irish writer at the top of his game with seven short stories exploring the uncertainties of those living on the margins of life. Leitch is a master at depicting the self-deceptions of those trapped in their own lives and fantasies. By turns savage, brutally candid and ironical, the author displays profound compassion for his characters and the all-too-human predicaments in which they find themselves. It makes Dining at the Dunbar an unsettling, yet ultimately triumphant, collection.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dining At The Dunbar (Lagan Press, 2009) Tell Me About It (Absolute, 2008), The Eggman’s Apprentice (Secker & Warburg, 2001), The Smoke King (Secker & Warburg, 1998), Gilchrist (Secker & Warburg, 1994), Burning Bridges (Secker & Warburg, 1989), Chinese Whispers (Secker & Warburg, 1987), Silver’s City (Secker & Warburg, 1981), Stamping Ground (Secker & Warburg, 1975), Poor Lazarus (Secker & Warburg, 1969), The Liberty Lad (Secker & Warburg, 1965).
