In conversation with... Ian Rankin

Dirty, divorced and often depressed. A stereotypical Scottish hardman, externally fierce and gruff, seeks willing companion for decades long bout of heavy drinking, detective work and self-destructive behaviour. Unwilling to make an effort.

Detective Inspector John Rebus does not make a good personal ad.

Yet, for the last 20 years, Ian Rankin has carried Rebus with him - in this work, in his heart and always, always on his mind. Is it any wonder that after spending 17 books in conversation with the Strawman of Edinburgh, a break-up would eventually have to come?

But a break can bring a lot of things. When Inspector Rebus was forced into retirement two years ago, there were fears that freed from the trials of the no-nonsense cop, the creator would find greener and happier pastures to roam in. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In  2010, I spoke with Scottish writer Ian Rankin about the recent retirement of literary muse, John Rebus. Perhaps the most interesting part of the interview however was when Rankin talked about the place of crime fiction in the broader world of literature and the subtle work that writers like Ian McEwan, John Bandville [as Benjamin Black] and himself were doing to make crime fiction and literary fiction one and the same. 

 

Click HERE to read this interview in full as well as other interviews with Ann Enright, John Arden, Kevin Barry, Colm Tóibin, Julian Gough, Donal Ryan, Colin Barrett, Catherine O'Flynn and Danielle McLaughlin.

In conversation with... Colin Barrett

The Atlantic seaboard is a magnetic for the imagination. A place where thoughts and ideas crash on the weather worn shore and disperse in a spray of creative energy. It's something in the wildness of the place, the poetry of the Hiberno-English and the feeling of an almost righteous isolation. It's something that Colin Barrett knows well. Andrew Hamilton finds out more.
A lot happens in Glanbeigh. At the end of every lane in this West of Ireland town lies a life and a story worth knowing. They are tales shaped by love and loss, revenge and hope - stories that scratch at the surface of the conscience mind, somehow demanding to be written and read.

Glanbeigh is the creative home of Colin Barrett. The fictional Mayo town has formed the rich breeding ground for his breakthrough collection of short-stories 'Young Skins' and helped Barrett catapult himself to the head of an emerging breed of exciting new Irish writers.
"When I started writing about Glanbeigh and writing about that world and the characters who inhabit it, that work always seemed like my strongest work. It seems to have an intensity and a focus that my other work didn't have. Of course I was writing other stories [not set in small town Ireland] but not everything I write gets published. I tried different things, I experimented, but it just didn't have the same energy that those stories have. They just seemed more alive," he says.

To read the interview in full click HERE