The Wren, the Wren

Born in Dublin in 1962, Irish novelist Anne Enright studied creative writing at the University of East Anglia under Malcolm Bradbury and Angela Carter. Enright cites Carter as a particularly strong influence on her writing, which is evident in their shared focus on the uncanny experience of the female body. Where Carter’s work functioned as a platform for feminism and subversion in the 1960s and ’70s, Enright used her writing to examine the relationship between the body and identity. One of Enright’s early novels, What Are You Like? (2000), follows twin girls who are separated at birth and raised in England and Ireland, respectively. This premise not only hints at the way family dynamics have a profound effect on one’s characters but also points to the continuing cultural tensions between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Enright’s fascination with family dynamics continues in her later work, most prominently her 2007 novel, The Gathering, which won that year’s Man Booker Prize. The novel is told from the perspective of a woman whose brother has died by suicide. In his lifetime, the brother experienced alcohol addiction, which hints at the difficult family truths the woman and her seven surviving siblings uncover throughout the

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