唐纳·瑞安在伯恩斯图书馆报道. （吉尔伯特）
获奖的爱尔兰小说家多纳尔·瑞安, whose archives were recently acquired by the John J. Burns Library, 作为一个成功的作家，你有不寻常的形象吗.
蒂珀雷里本地人，学习土木工程和法律, 瑞安在爱尔兰的公务员部门工作了很长时间, 直到大约10年前，我才真正开始写作. 他出版的第一本书是《太阳城网赌平台》 旋转的心 – which evoked the personal as well as financial cost of Irel和’s recession through the “voices” of 21 characters – won several honors, 包括欧盟文学奖, 并入围了布克奖. 他后来的小说， 关于十二月的事 和 我们将知道的一切和故事集， 太阳的倾斜，也获得了公众和评论界的一致好评.
Ryan finally left his civil service job last year to become a full-time lecturer at the University of Limerick, 他在哪里当过常驻作家, 现在正准备出版他的新书. He 生活 in Limerick with his wife 安妮玛丽 – whom he has credited as a muse 和 sounding board – 和 their two school-age children.
为了纪念伯恩斯获得他的论文和其他材料, Ryan came to campus earlier this year to give a reading 和 meet with faculty 和 students. 他采访了《太阳城官网》的编辑肖恩·史密斯 太阳城网赌平台纪事报.
住, 作为一名作家，你还处于职业生涯的早期, what does it mean to you to have your archives housed in a place like the Burns Library?
实际上，这让我松了一口气. 我收集东西已经好几年了, 虽然我不是囤积狂, 我一直不愿意去看我该丢掉什么. In the past, I’d never really thought about creating an archive; it seemed like navel-gazing. But I realize the value of having a record of one’s past projects, 和 to have it maintained at 太阳城网赌平台 is a very good feeling.
Actually, I have no memory of writing some of the things in there. My dad kept my juvenilia for years – thous和s of stories 和 poems, a lot wound up being thrown out accidentally – long before I thought of preserving anything. It’s helpful to look back 和 see what you thought was important to express, 还有你犯的错误. When you’re in the woods you can’t see the trees – as a young person, 你倾向于不去审视当下之外的事情.
You didn't really focus on writing until about 10 years or so ago, 当你开始思考将来会变成什么样子 关于十二月的事. 有什么特别的事情引发了这一切吗, or was it a case of just starting something for a lark 和 then building on the momentum?
是我的妻子, 安妮玛丽, recognizing that I needed to fulfill the promise I had made to myself, 一遍又一遍，然后破碎, 一遍又一遍，来完成一部小说. I was a serial starter 和 an inveterate quitter when it came to writing. 我再也无法维持我的信心. I’d burn short stories 和 half-baked, quarter-finished novel drafts all the time. 我活了很多年, 独自一人, 20多岁的时候住在闹鬼的公寓里, 只有空间和时间可以写作, 却找不到任何牵引力.
结婚初期，安妮·玛丽让我感到羞耻. I’d say she was sick of listening to my big talk: “Just shut up 和 do it,” she said. And she kept the pressure on, page for page, until it was done, 和 I had a finished novel. 关于十二月的事 was my gift to my wife, a desperate attempt to impress her. 幸运的是，它起作用了.
旋转的心, 你最先出版的是哪本, reads like an oral history as well as a sort of forensic investigation, 还有一个新闻层面, too: the impact of a major event – the Great Recession – on ordinary, 和脆弱, 生活. 这些元素是如何组合在一起的?
我直接盲目地跳上了复调. 当我开始的时候，我刚刚完成了《太阳城网赌平台》 旋转的心， 在那之后，我感觉情绪有点疲惫. 那是一本紧张的书, 因为我扮演主角, Johnsey坎里夫, 就像我写的那样完整.
I didn’t think I could sustain that level of involvement again so soon 和 so I decided to write a chorus of monologues, 每个角色都有一个小空间来讲述他们的故事. It was actually a lot easier to write, 和 came together very quickly. 声音似乎很吵，他们的故事很容易形成. I was very much drawing on familiar things: the language 和 l和scape 和 lexicon of my native place, 我认识和爱过的人.
考虑到 12月 和 旋转的心 followed one another, did you come to view one book as a companion to the other?
Actually, neither book was published until two years a利 they were both completed. 他们确实感觉像一组人, 当然，这是我们繁荣与萧条周期的一种终结, 故事发生在2001年和2010年, 分别. 我其实把结局给了 关于十二月的事 在开篇一章 旋转的心, 这感觉有点错, 在某种程度上, 但从另一个角度来说是对的, 因为这些书是如此相连的, 而且来自同一个中心地带. They were written in the same spirit, one of deep fraternal love.
A利 旋转的心， you got a lot of attention from the media, but not just about your writing. There was the story about you contacting almost 50 different publishers before being accepted.
好吧, not all of my inquiries involved submitting a hard copy of the manuscript; sometimes I just sent e-mails. 我并不是每次都被拒绝, either – sometimes it was “We just don’t know if we’re taking on new books right now.“在某些情况下，我根本没有得到回应.
Of course, there was an agent in New Jersey who told me, “I’d be embarrassed to submit this.” Or the publishing house that sent me a piece of paper that said, “对不起, 不适合我们,我只知道他们根本没读过.
I didn’t think it was at all unusual to have to make all these contacts, though. As far as I knew, it was par for the course in trying to get published.
And then when you went back to your civil service job – before you wound up taking the position at University of Limerick – some of the reporting made it seem like you were destitute.
（笑声）“畅销书作家不得不去工作支付账单.“我当时正在休假, 一直计划着回去工作, 我碰巧喜欢做的事. 我的观点是, 即使作为一个到目前为止做得很好的作家, I wasn’t a millionaire who could now retire – that’s just not how it works in publishing, 尤其是当你有妻子和两个孩子，还要还房贷的时候.
事实上，我喜欢有一份全职工作. It forces you to be disciplined 和 structured; you have to approach writing as work, not just art. 人们倾向于更多地从艺术角度思考写作, but if you invest too much in the artistic side of yourself you may not do what’s necessary to make the book something people will actually want to read: “No, 这是我的艺术, 我不会为任何人改变它.”
对我来说，当我写东西的时候，我只想让我的妻子喜欢. 她喜欢好故事.
You have a new book coming out this summer, your fifth in the past six years. 你现在意识到自己有“大量的工作”了吗," a "style" that will create certain expectations among readers (和 critics)?
我很高兴这么说 《平静的大海 将在美国出版.S. 企鹅出版社7月出版. 它讲述了三个截然不同的人的故事, 和 is set partly in Syria 和 in a Greek refugee camp before moving back to Irel和 和 my beloved Tipperary/Limerick border area.
我确实觉得人们期待某种类型的大众驱动, 我的作品是基于角色的, but that suits me just fine as I’m happy to stay in that creative space for my whole career. I read really widely 和 I love all sorts of fiction, but I know where I belong as a writer. 虽然我知道我实际上知道的很少. We’re all writing into the darkness, hoping to cast some feeble light.