“It’s not that she’s below the radar,” wrote Eoin McNamee about author Anna Burns when he interviewed her for The Irish Times last month about her novel, Milkman. Although highly original, its absurdist black humour and trapped characters evoke Samuel Beckett. Now her publisher has printed 150,000 copies and Milkman is Amazon’s No 1 bestseller, so her royalties are likely to more than match her £50,000 prize. Burns’s success, however, only serves to highlight that most writers live on the breadline. Milkman’s acknowledgements include a food bank and a housing charity which helped her find a home.

Source: The Irish Times October 19, 2018 23:03 UTC