The Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature was this year received by UCD Professor Frank McGuiness, cialis sale who lectures in Creative Writing at the UCD School of English.
The Irish PEN award, which awards Irish writers who have been judged to have made a significant impact on the world of Irish literature over the span of many years, was first awarded in 1999 to Kerryman John B. Keane.
Professor McGuinness, a celebrated playwright whose body of work includes 22 original plays, 18 adaptations and five novels of poetry, was last year also shortlisted for the Bord Gáis Energy Book Award Novel of the Year for his latest book ARIMATHEA. He has also produced adapted scripts for cinema, most notably the film rendition of Dancing at Lughnasa, originally taken from the 1990 play written by fellow PEN award winning playwright Brian Friel. He is well known for his first major stage success, the much-admired ‘Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme’.
The Donegal native McGuiness officially received his Irish PEN award at the 2014 Award Dinner on 21st February 2014 and hence has now joined an esteemed group of previous winners such as Edna O’Brien, William Trevor, John McGahern, Neil Jordan, Seamus Heaney, Jennifer Johnston, Maeve Binchy, Thomas Kilroy, Roddy Doyle, Joseph O’Connor and John Banville.
