Award-winning Co Antrim author Jan Carson has described how she now identifies as an “Irish” writer after having grown up in a unionist family background.
The Ballymena-born author, who has previously won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland in 2019, discussed her career on RTÉ‘s Second Captain’s Saturday podcast.
In an interview with hosts Eoin McDevitt and Ciarán Murphy, Ms Carson talked about how she felt “welcomed by the Irish writing community” and how it affected her sense of national identity.
The author told the hosts she now has an Irish passport, having applied for one in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum in 2016.
She said part of the reason for applying was to avoid airport queues while travelling in Europe.
“But it was also the culmination of a process of thinking about national identity for me,” she said.
“I had been really, really well-received and welcomed by the Irish writing community - much more so than I had by the British writing community.
“That culminated in 2019 for me – when I got the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland for a book about loyalism, which felt like a really gracious gesture to me. So I would probably identify as an Irish writer for sure now.”
The EU literature prize was for her second novel, The Fire Starters, which is set in loyalist east Belfast.
In a previous interview with the Church Times, the author described how her grandfather was an Orangeman and her father was involved in the Presbyterian church, stating “we were brought up very British”.
She explained in Saturday’s podcast interview how she is “still the only person in my extended family who has an Irish passport”.
In the interview, Ms Carson also describes how growing up in Ballymena there was a “sense of othering” when it came to the Catholic community.
“We knew that some people got different buses to school, that they dressed different, that they had different names from us, and I guess for me, being so steeped in literature it was quite fascinating. Anything that’s ‘other’ I was quite intrigued by what was going on.”
She added: “There are still some things about the British identity that I love and value,” and referenced the Edinburgh book festival and her use of Ulster Scots words in her writing.
“To me, straddling the two identities feels where I am at the minute, and quite a comfortable space to be in.”
