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ATLANTA — Georgia State University Professor of English Marilynn Richtarik has been shortlisted for the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize for her 2023 book, “Getting to Good Friday: Literature and the Peace Process in Northern Ireland” (Oxford University Press, 2023). Among the six finalists for the prestigious biennial international prize, which carries a £7,500 ($9,400) award, Richtarik is the only American and the only nominee without a direct connection to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The winner will be announced Feb. 27 at a reception in the Irish Embassy, London. Richtarik’s previous book, “Stewart Parker: A Life” (OUP, 2012), was also shortlisted for the Ewart-Biggs prize.
“Getting to Good Friday” intertwines literary analysis and narrative history in an accessible account of the shifts in thinking and talking about Northern Ireland’s divided society that brought 30 years of political violence to a close with the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. Drawing on decades of reading, researching and teaching Northern Irish literature and talking and corresponding with Northern Irish writers, Richtarik describes literary reactions and contributions to the peace process during the 15 years preceding the agreement and in the immediate post-conflict era, interpreting literary works by Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Deirdre Madden, Seamus Deane, Bernard MacLaverty, Colum McCann and David Park. Through Richtarik’s engaging narrative, creative writing emerges as both the medium of and a metaphor for the peace process itself.
Irish historian and academic Roy Foster, one of the judges, describes Richtarik’s book as “a searching and original study of the interplay between creative literature and the political developments which climaxed with the agreement.”
The other nominees are:
- Huw Bennett, “Uncivil War: The British Army and the Troubles, 1966-1975” (Cambridge University Press).
- “Derry Girls,” Channel 4 TV series: final episode of Series 3, “The Agreement.”
- Michael Magee, “Close to Home” (Hamish Hamilton).
- Owen McCafferty, “Agreement” (Faber).
- “Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland,” five-part BBC2 TV series.
The Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize is named for the British ambassador to Ireland who was killed by the IRA in 1976 during the Troubles, a 30-year sectarian conflict centered in Northern Ireland that claimed more than 3,500 lives and ended with the signing of the historic Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Awarded every two years since 1977, the goal of the prize is to promote and encourage peace and reconciliation in Ireland, a greater understanding between the peoples of Britain and Ireland or closer co-operation between the partners of the European community.
Featured Researcher
Marilynn Richtarik
Professor
English
Richtarik teaches courses on 20th-century British, Irish and world literature and modern drama. She was educated at Harvard (where she earned an undergraduate honors degree in American history and literature) and at Oxford University, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar. Her research interests center on Northern Irish literature and theatre, where politics and artistic production are intimately related. Her research has been supported by the Rhodes Trust, the Killam Trust, the American Philosophical Society, the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Hambidge Center and the US-UK Fulbright Commission.