The Wren, The Wren

"Yes. It’s an intergenerational saga set in Ireland, exploring the really messy, fraught relationship between Carmel and her daughter Nell. They’ve moved from being a very close single-mother, only-daughter unit to having quite a fractured relationship. It also encompasses the long shadow thrown over their family by Carmel’s father, Phil, who is now deceased but was a famous poet. He’s a big absence, and also a huge presence in Carmel’s life. And he was a monstrous person in many ways. I mean, he abandoned his family, for instance. But it’s also “devastatingly easy”—that’s a phrase from the book—to love him, because he was so charming. “The Women’s Prize criteria are: excellence, originality, and accessibility. All of those things can come in different forms” Through Phil, Anne Enright raises a lot of questions about art. For instance: is it possible to separate the art and the artist? If the person who has produced the art has done terrible things in their life, does that affect how you view that art? Phil’s poems also appear in the book, which is quite an original feature. And those poems are absolutely brilliant, as well. So there’s a lot going on in this novel. It’s centred on family relationships, but it raises those bigger questions about art as well."