Efacis "When I spent the first months of strict Covid Lockdown gazing out at a deserted Dublin street, while going back over short stories published or broadcast during the previous three decades, to revise the best of them and finally publish a debut collection of short stories, I often wondered, in those strange times, who, if anyone, would eventually read them. This meant that it was a huge pleasure and privilege, in 2024, to visit universities in Alcalá and Granada and find the students of Marisol Morales-Ladrón and of Pilar Villar Argáiz so eager to engage with these phantoms of my imagination, plying me with really insightful questions about my characters and about Irish writing in general.
The professors involved could not have been more hospitable or the students any more familiar with the work that they had studied in advance. Writing, by its nature, is an isolated business and having sent these stories out into the world, it was wondrous to meet them again in this context where a new generation of students were so immersed in grappling with the themes in my work.
Hopefully I imparted some knowledge about Ireland and Irish writing in these two packed question and answer sessions, and, for my own part, I came away with a deeper knowledge of Spain. My thanks to everyone involved in the two universities, and to Sien Deltour and everyone in EFACIS for making this fascinating trip possible."
Dermot Bolger
