Bernard MacLaverty (born 14 September 1942) is a Northern Irish fiction writer and novelist. His novels include '' Cal'' and '' Grace Notes''. He has written five books of short stories.

Biography

MacLaverty was born in no. 73 Atlantic Avenue in the Newington area of north

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

,Aine Toner
"Author Bernard MacLaverty: 'I don’t know why, but when I start to create, Belfast peeps around the corner'"
''Belfast Telegraph'', 29 May 2025. Retrieved 29 May 2025

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. He was educated at Holy Family Primary School in Newington and then at St Malachy's College. After school, he studied at

Queen's University Belfast The Queen's University of Belfast, commonly known as Queen's University Belfast (; abbreviated Queen's or QUB), is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The university received its charter in 1845 as part of ...

where he worked as a medical laboratory technician; later he showed

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...

some poetry he had written, prompting the renowned poet to advise MacLaverty to stick to short stories. He lived in Belfast until 1975, when he moved to Scotland with his wife, Madeline, and four children (Ciara, Claire, John and Jude). He initially lived in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

and then the island of

Islay Islay ( ; , ) is the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Known as "The Queen of the Hebrides", it lies in Argyll and Bute just south west of Jura, Scotland, Jura and around north of the Northern Irish coast. The island's cap ...

before settling in the West End of Glasgow. He was writer-in-residence at the Universities of

Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...

, Liverpool John Moores,

Augsburg Augsburg ( , ; ; ) is a city in the Bavaria, Bavarian part of Swabia, Germany, around west of the Bavarian capital Munich. It is a College town, university town and the regional seat of the Swabia (administrative region), Swabia with a well ...

and Iowa State. He was the Ireland Fund Artist-in-Residence in the Celtic Studies Department of University of St. Michael's College, a college at

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

, in October 2007.

Work

MacLaverty is the author of five novels and seven short story collections. His first novel ''Lamb'' was published in 1980. It is about faith, relationships and love. It was followed by '' Cal'' in 1983. This is an examination of love in the midst of violence. '' Grace Notes'', which was published in 1997, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. It is about the conflict between a desire to compose and motherhood. ''The Anatomy School'' (2001) is a comedic

coming-of-age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can b ...

novel. He has also written six collections of short stories, the contents of which are mostly in ''Collected Stories'' (Cape, 2013). MacLaverty wrote a screenplay for ''Cal'' in 1984, which was picked up for production by Goldcrest Films; Helen Mirren and John Lynch starred in ''Cal'' (1984), and

Mark Knopfler Mark Freuder Knopfler OBE (born 12 August 1949) is a British musician. He was the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the rock band Dire Straits from 1977 to 1995, and he is the one of the two members who stayed during the band's existence ...

composed the film soundtrack, also called '' Cal''. The film was entered into the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, where Mirren won the award for Best Actress. It was received well by critics, but lost money in the box office on the order of –£118,000 net profit. He also adapted ''Lamb'' for the screen; Liam Neeson and Hugh O'Conor starred in '' Lamb'' (1985) and

Van Morrison Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison (born 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician whose recording career started in the 1960s. Morrison's albums have performed well in the UK and Ireland, with more than 40 reaching the UK ...

composed the soundtrack. MacLaverty has written versions of his fiction for other media – radio plays, television plays, screenplays and libretti. In 2003 he wrote and directed a short film ''Bye-Child'' (BAFTA-nominated for "Best Short Film") and more recently wrote libretti for Scottish Opera's Five:15 series ''The King’s Conjecture'', with music by Gareth Williams, and ''The Letter'' with music by Vitaly Khodosh. For Scottish Opera in 2012, and again with music by Gareth Williams, he wrote ''The Elephant Angel'', an opera for schools, which toured Scotland and

List of published works

Novels * ''Lamb'', Cape / Blackstaff Press (1980) * '' Cal'', Cape / Blackstaff Press (1983) * '' Grace Notes'', Cape / Blackstaff Press (1997) * ''The Anatomy School'', Cape / Blackstaff Press (2001) * ''Midwinter Break: A Novel'', W. W. Norton & Company (2017) Short story collections * ''Secrets & Other Stories'', Blackstaff Press (1977) * ''A Time to Dance & Other Stories'', Cape / Blackstaff Press (1982) * ''The Great Profundo & Other Stories'', Cape / Blackstaff Press (1987) * ''Walking the Dog & Other Stories'', Cape / Blackstaff Press (1994) * ''Matters of Life & Death & Other Stories'', Cape (2006) * ''Collected Stories'', Cape (2013) * ''Blank Pages and Other Stories'', Cape (2021)

Critical reception

There have been several extensive assessments of his work including: * Rankin Russell, R. (ed.) (2014). ''About Bernard MacLaverty: New Critical Readings''. Bloomsbury Academic. (191 pages) * Rankin Russell, R. (2009). ''Bernard MacLaverty''. Bucknell University Press, Contemporary Irish Writers Series. (175 pages). Colm Tobin described '‘Midwinter Break'' as 'a work of extraordinary emotional precision and sympathy, about coming to terms – to an honest reckoning – with love and the loss of love, with memory and pain...this is a novel of great ambition by an artist at the height of his powers’. His work has received multiple awards including being nominated for the Booker Prize in 1997 for '' Grace Notes''. His novel ''Midwinter Break'' was the winner of the Bord Gáis Novel of the Year in 2017 and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Other awards were the Pharic McLaren Award for the best radio play from Radio Industries of Scotland for 'My Dear Palestrina' and the Jacobs Award for best play from Radio Telefis Eireann for television production 'My Dear Palestrina' in 1981, the London Evening Standard Award for best screenplay for 'Cal' in 1984 and the Bronze medal for screenplay of 'Lamb'; also voted best film by the youth jury and by the ecumenical jury, Lucarno Film Festival in 1987.

Awards

* 1988 - 'Scottish Writer of the Year' * 2005 - The Lord Provost of Glasgow’s Award for Literature * 2018 - Hennessy Literary Hall of Fame * 2018 - Sunday Herald Culture Awards Best Writer Award 2018 * He is a member of Aosdána, the Irish arts academy.

References

External links