Anne Devlin (writer)

Anne Devlin (born 13 September 1951)^[1] is a short story writer, playwright and screenwriter born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She was a teacher from 1974 to 1978, and started writing fiction in 1976 in Germany. Having lived in London for a decade, she returned to Belfast in 2007.^[2]

Anne Devlin

She is the daughter of Paddy Devlin, a Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) Member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland and later a founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). She was raised in Belfast. In January 1969, while a student at the New University of Ulster, Devlin joined a civil rights march from Belfast to Derry, organised by the People's Democracy. At Burntollet Bridge, a few miles from Derry, the march was attacked by loyalists. Devlin was struck on the head, knocked unconscious, fell into the river, and was brought to hospital suffering from concussion. The march was echoed in her 1994 play After Easter.^[3] At university, Devlin was briefly associated with the Coleraine Cluster of poets and writers before leaving the Northern Ireland to work as a teacher in Germany.^[4]

She then moved to England where she established a career in television and radio. She was visiting lecturer in playwriting at the University of Birmingham in 1987, and a writer in residence at Lund University, Sweden, in 1990.^[5]

Publications

• 1988 - The Rainbow
• 1992 - Wuthering Heights
• 1999 - Titanic Town (Faber & Faber)

Awards

• 1992 - Hennessy Literary Award for short stories
• 1985 - Samuel Beckett Award for TV Drama^[6]

References

1. "Weekend birthdays". The Guardian. 13 September 2014. p. 55.
2. "Anne Devlin". Alan Brodie Representation. Archived from the original on 11 December 2003. Retrieved 29 July 2007.
3. Virginie Privas (2006). "Anne Devlin's Ourselves Alone (1987) and After Easter: autobiographical plays?" (PDF). Hyper Articles en Ligne. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 September 2012. Retrieved 19 August 2010.
4. Bell, Gail (12 December 2016). "Belfast playwright Anne Devlin on Shakespeare and civil rights". The Irish News. Retrieved 16 July 2022.
5. "Author Biography - Anne Devlin". E-Notes. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 29 July 2007.
6. Bell, Gail (12 December 2016). "Belfast playwright Anne Devlin on Shakespeare and civil rights". The Irish News. Retrieved 16 July 2022.