Profile of Maeve Binchy (1939 to 2012), one of Ireland's most renowned and successful novelists. Her warm, humourous and compassionate writing style are showcased in international best sellers, including Light a Penny Candle (1982), Echoes (1985), Circle of Friends (1990) and Tara Road (1998).
In this episode of Irish Writers, Binchy discusses the life experiences and cultural touchstones that were pivotal in her development as a writer. She shares her thoughts on the writing experience and quotes from her novels.
She recounts her first, somewhat unusual, foray as a writer. Having gone to Israel, she determined to keep her family informed of what she was doing (and allay their fears), by writing them long detailed letters. Unbeknownst to Binchy, her family had one of these letters typed-up, sent to a magazine and it was soon published! Amused, she describes arriving home to discover she had become a "writer by accident!" What, she pondered, "might happen if I did it [tried to become a writer] on purpose?! However, despite this early, inadvertent break, it would be another four years before a piece of her work was again published.
Binchy explains a common trope, of basing her stories within villages. It is, she says, strategic. "It's terribly easy... because you don't have to think a whole lot of complicated excuses as to why Mary met John". Similarly, she often writes about children, as their experiences and lives are something that everybody can, to some degree, understand. However, she notes that she choose not to write children's books, as her past career as a teacher would come through, and the children could "sniff that out"!