Launch of 'The Neon Rose'

galway | arts and media | event notice Wednesday April 18, 2007 17:04 by Fred Johnston sylfredcar at iolfree dot ie

Charlie Byrne's Bookstore launch

Author and critic Fred Johnston launches novel set in contemporary Paris

'The Neon Rose' - novel of the Irish in Paris

Critic, poet and novelist Fred Johnston will bring out his new novel, 'The Neon Rose,' (bluechrome - UK) set in contemporary Paris and the Parisian legal world, in Charlie Byrne's Bookshop, Middle Street, Galway, on Friday, May 11th, starting at 6. 30pm. All welcome. The book will be launched by renowned playwright and novelist, John Arden. The novel explores the relationship between a young Irishman in prison in Paris and his defending counsel, against a backdrop of the invasion of Iraq and the underbelly of Paris daily society.
"The book is, I trust, as much an exploration of the city as anything else," he says. "I love visiting Paris. The cultural mix, the sense of a living an largely unrestrained creativity. Behind this, of course, there is the poverty, the homelessness, the fighting in the suburbs. But it's also a story of how the Irish have become diasporic again, in a new Europe, and are managing to get lost in it."
Fred Johnston, born in Belfast, and educated there and Toronto, Canada, came to Galway in 1977. The founder of Galway's annual Cúirt literature festival in 1986, he is Manager of the Western Writers' Centre, which he devised about six years ago. In 1972 he was an early recipient of a Hennessy Literary Award for prose, the judges being the late V.S.Pritchett and James Plunkett. With Neil Jordan and Peter Sheridan, he was co-founder of the Irish Writers' Co-operative in the mid-Seventies. For a time he acted with The Lantern Theatre in Dublin, having attended the Brendan Smith Academy. In Galway, he set up a rag-taggle 'Galway Writers' Workshop,' for whom artist Jo Boske designed a logo, and he edited and sold a photocopied broadsheet of new stories and poems. He lived in Algeria for some time, and on his return in the very early 'Eighties, received The Sunday Independent awards for both prose and poetry. He has published eight collections of poetry, had three plays performed, including 'No Earthly Pole,' an investigation of the life of explorer Sir John Franklin, which was produced by Punchbag Theatre some years ago, and published three novels and a collection of short stories. He received the Prix de l'Ambassade in 2002 to translate the poems of Michel Martin. In the 'Nineties also one of his poems was shortlisted for a Forward Poetry Prize.
A traditional musician from an early age, he brought out two albums with the group, Parsons Hat, in the 'Nineties and more recently two albums of his own, the most recent being 'Local Papers.' He has been a reviewer of new poetry and prose for a number of magazines and journals, including Harpers & Queen, The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, Books Ireland, Poetry Ireland, The Irish University Review. In the days of The Sunday Press, he was their Theatre Critic for the West. In the Seventies he had been a theatre critic with the Catholic Standard for a brief period. A journalist for a numnber of years with newspapers here and with the Belfast Telegraph, he wrote, with photographer Peter Orford, the very first publication of the Simon Community in Ireland, brought here by Anton Wallich-Clifford. A new collection of poems, 'The Oracle Room,' is due from the UK's Cinnamon Poetry laster this Summer. He teaches Creative Writing at NUI Galway as part of the Adult Education programme. He has been the recipient of several Literature Bursaries from the Arts Council here and in Northern Ireland. He was Writer in Residence to The Princess Grace Irish Library at Monaco in 2004. A novel, 'Mapping God,' first published here, has been sold for translation in Europe. He is currently translating the poetry of Colette Wittorski, a French poet living in Brittany.