Love and War: Belfast Fictions with Louise Kennedy and Lucy Caldwell

Supported by the British Library

Come spend an afternoon with two of Belfast’s finest storytellers, with their unique perspectives on love and survival. Lucy Caldwell’s These Days focuses on the four nights of the Blitz in April 1941, as two sisters, one engaged to be married, the other sustaining a secret relationship with another woman, fight to stay true to themselves. Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses, set at the height of the Troubles, features Cushla, a young teacher and part-time bartender, who embarks on an affair with Michael, a married barrister who introduces her to a world of privilege and luxury. But when the father of one of her students is murdered, political tensions escalate, threatening to destroy everything Cushla is building…

Lucy Caldwell was born in Belfast in 1981. She is the author of three previous novels, several stage plays and radio dramas, and two collections of short stories: Multitudes and Intimacies. She won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2021 for ‘All the People Were Mean and Bad’.

Louise Kennedy grew up in Holywood, Co. Down. Her short stories have appeared in journals including The Stinging Fly, The Tangerine, Banshee, Wasifiri and Ambit, and she has written for the Guardian, Irish Times, BBC Radio 4 and RTE Radio 1. Her work has won prizes and she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award in both 2019 and 2020. Before starting her writing career, she spent nearly thirty years working as a chef. She lives in Sligo with her husband and two children.

Supported by Arts Council Northern Ireland National Lottery Fund and the International Literature Showcase Collaboration Fund. The International Literature Showcase is a partnership between the National Centre for Writing and the British Council.