Frankfurt spawns a diaspora

THE Ireland and its Diaspora festival at the Frankfurt Book Fair spawned a diaspora of its own last week when a group of Irish writers gave a series of readings at the Literaturwerkstatt in Berlin. Hugo Hamilton, Bridget O'Connor, Evelyn Conlon, Liam Mac Coil and Cathal O Searcaigh are not the most famous names in Irish writing, but they attracted substantial, attentive audiences to a secluded villa in the east of the city.

A nationwide festival of Irish culture called A Day of Irish Life continues in Germany until December 21st with such events as tours by the Ulster Orchestra and numerous traditional musicians and a season of Irish films in Frankfurt. But the afterglow from the Irish focus at Frankfurt will last well beyond the end of this year as the book buying public samples the writing they heard so much about during the past few weeks.

The book fair organisers believe that the Irish focus was among the most successful to date, generating hundreds of newspaper articles and radio reports and dozens of television features. The Franca-German cultural television channel, Arte last week devoted an entire evening's programmes to Ireland. Germany's most influential critics and reviewers have been reading more Irish writing than ever before and, in most cases, praising it generously.

The director of Ireland and its Diaspora, Lar Cassidy, is delighted with the response to the Irish events and predicts major benefits for Irish writers.

"It has been demonstrated at Frankfurt in the past that a successful focal theme will produce a definite upward shift in demand for your books. The media interest in Ireland and its Diaspora has been enormous and I think Irish writers and publishers can expect to reap the benefits," he said.

CASSIDY believes his policy of showcasing younger writers such as Glenn Patterson and Eoin McNamee, as well as more established names, has been justified and claims that Germans have been shown a more modern image of Ireland.

In one of the liveliest discussions during the book fair, novelist John Banville and Prof Edna Longley compared contemporary writing in the two parts of Ireland. Banville identified great energy in new writing from the south, but expressed doubts as to how enduring much of it would prove to be.

Prof Longley spoke of a surfeit of "Troubles trash" generated by the political situation in the North, but both speakers praised the work of the northern poets, led by Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon. Banville believed that the tension between an urge towards political engagement and the desire for escape had produced an equilibrium in which beautiful, subtle work was born.

A German journalist who attended most of the readings in Frankfurt complained that writers had avoided talking about the violence in the North and asked if they were following a policy on behalf of the Irish tourist hoard. The fact that southern writers scarcely mentioned the Troubles probably reflects the low level of interest in the North among the general public in the south. But Ireland and its Diaspora undoubtedly attempted to escape from hackneyed images of Ireland and to surprise the Frankfurt audience with the diversity of Irish life.

Colm Toibin, who read from his novel The Heather Blazing in Frankfurt spoke later about the German perception of Ireland. "There's a feeling in Germany that Ireland is innocent, but Ireland is not innocent at all. But one of the interesting things about Ireland is that the business of cultural identity still has to be worked out," he said.

Nobody embodies the changes wrought in Irish society over the past 30 years more perfectly than Edna O'Brien, who ended the book fair with a captivating reading from her new novel Dawn by the Rivers The book, which is her best for many years, tells a harrowing story of child abuse, incest and abortion. O'Brien, who spoke without bitterness of the banning and burning of her early books, said she had been pleasantly surprised by the warm reception her latest novel had received in Ireland.

The story of O'Brien's changing relationship with her own country says much, too, about the improved status of writers in Ireland. After years of being suppressed and reviled, writers are cherished and celebrated in Ireland as a national treasure. After Ireland and its Diaspora at Frankfurt. Germany is ready to join in the celebration.