M.J. Hyland
Prize-winning novelist M.J. Hyland is a valuable addition to The Centre for New Writing's staff of novelists and poets. She was recently awarded the Hawthornden Prize for her second novel Carry Me Down and the Encore prize for best second novel, and has been appointed to the Centre as a Lecturer in Creative Writing.
M.J. Hyland's second novel, which charts a year in the profoundly troubled family life of twelve year old John Egan in early 1970s Ireland, was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Her work has been acclaimed by the likes of Ali Smith, Hilary Mantel and J.M. Coetzee, who said, "This is fiction writing of the highest order."
Co-Director of the Centre Dr John McAuliffe said: "She is a terrific writer, one of the leading members of the new generation of British and Irish novelists, and her experience as a writer coupled with her enthusiasm as a teacher will be a real boon to our students."