Gerard Donovan

Gerard Donovan
Born	1959 [1] Wexford [2]
Occupation	Lecturer at University of Plymouth
Nationality	Irish
Period	1992 -
Notable works	Schopenhauer's Telescope

Gerard Donovan (born 1959), is an Irish-born novelist, photographer and poet living in Plymouth, England, working as a lecturer at the University of Plymouth.

Career

Donovan attracted immediate critical acclaim with his debut novel Schopenhauer's Telescope , which was long-listed for the Booker Prize in 2003, ^[3] and which won the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award in 2004. ^[4] His subsequent novels include Doctor Salt (2005), Julius Winsome (2006), and Sunless (2007). However, Sunless is essentially a rewritten version of Doctor Salt—ultimately very different from the earlier novel, but built upon the same basic narrative elements—of which Donovan has said: "Doctor Salt... was a first draft of Sunless. I wrote [Doctor Salt] too fast, and the sense I was after just wasn't in the novel. ... I saw the chance to write the real novel, if you like, [when Doctor Salt was due to be published in the United States in 2007] and this I hope I've done in Sunless." ^[5]

Before writing prose, Donovan published three collections of poetry: Columbus Rides Again (1992), Kings and Bicycles (1995), and The Lighthouse (2000). ^[6] His next publication was Young Irelanders (2008) - a collection of short stories set in Ireland. He was said to be working on a novel set in early twentieth-century Europe. ^[7]

References

1. Ricorso.net
2. Book Depository Interview
3. The Booker Prize Foundation. The Man Booker Prize Official Website: 2003.
4. Library Thing Website
5. Donovan, Gerard. Interview by Jane Ciabattari. Critical Mass: 7 August 2007.
6. Gerard Donovan: Author Profile. Fantastic Fiction: 2007.
7. Donovan, Gerard. Interview by Mark Thwaite. The Book Depository: 2007.

External links

• Schopenhauer's Telescope reviewed by Matthew Kirkpatrick at Bookslut Archived 25 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine
• Doctor Salt reviewed by John Tague in The Independent ^{[ dead link ]}