Anakana Schofield is part of a new wave of wonderful Irish fiction-international in scope and electrically alive.

I think a good novel can be a doorstop to despair. I also think the real bravery comes with those who prepared to go through that door and look at the world in all its grime and torment, and still find something of value, no matter how small.

I'm a complete and utter fiction. Then again, we all are.

The luxury of age was the giving up of vanity.

Corrigan told me once that Christ was quite easy to understand. He went where He was supposed to go. He stayed where He was needed. He took little or nothing along, a pair of sandals, a bit of a shirt, a few odds and ends to stave off the loneliness. He never rejected the world. If He had rejected it, He would have been rejecting mystery. And if He rejected mystery, He would have been rejecting faith.

Yet she likes complications. She wishes she could turn and say: I like people who unbalance me.

I write about what I know; and I write about things that are new to me, and that I didn't know before.