Media
What Critics Say About Emma Donoghue
‘Donoghue’s great strength – apart from her storytelling gift – is her emotional intelligence.’ – IRISH INDEPENDENT (2010)
‘A thorough, intelligent researcher… a disarming, often funny historian.’ – SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (2010)
‘Donoghue is one of those rare writers who seems to be able to work on any register, any tone, any atmosphere, and make it her own.’ – OBSERVER (2007)
‘Her touch is so light and exuberantly inventive, her insight at once so forensic and intimate, her people so ordinary even in their oddities.’ – GUARDIAN (2007)
‘A mind that can excavate characters and lives far, far beyond her own front fence.’ – GLOBE AND MAIL (2007)
‘Donoghue has the born storyteller’s knack for sketching a personality and pulling readers into a plot in just a few pages… All-encompassing talent.’ – KIRKUS (2006)
‘Already a prolific novelist… Emma Donoghue is distinguished by her generous sympathy for her characters, sinuous prose and an imaginative range that may soon rival that of A.S. Byatt or Margaret Atwood.’ – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (2004)
‘Has an extraordinary talent for turning exhaustive research into plausible characters and narratives; she presents a vibrant world seething with repressed feeling and class tensions.’ – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (2004)
‘Her informed imaginings combined with her sheer cleverness and elegance as a writer breathe vivid life into real characters who heretofore resided in the footnotes of history.’ – IRISH TIMES (2002)
‘Every now and again, a writer comes along with a fully loaded brain and a nature so fanciful that she simply must spin out truly original and transporting stuff… Eccentric, untethered genius.’ – SEATTLE TIMES (2002)
‘Profoundly entertaining and intelligent.’ – ELLE (2000)
Selected Interviews
‘Room With a Panoramic View: How Emma Donoghue's Latest Novel Aims to Tell a Universal Story’, Boyd Tonkin, INDEPENDENT, 6 August 2010, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/room-with-a-panoramic-view-how-emma-donoghues-latest-novel-aims-to-tell-a-universal-story-2044373.html
‘I Knew I Wasn’t Being Voyeuristic’, Sarah Crown, GUARDIAN, 13 August 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/13/emma-donoghue-room-josef-fritzl
‘Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature: Emma Donoghue examines top story arcs in labour of love’, Alice Lawlor, XTRA (Toronto), 30 June 2010, http://www.xtra.ca/public/Toronto/Books_Inseparable_Desire_Between_Women_in_Literature-8858.aspx
‘Emma Donoghue interview’, Nairne Holtz, http://kissedbyvenus.ca/?p=2046
‘Emma Donoghue’s historical novels’, Alice Lawlor, XTRA (Toronto), 29 July 2008, http://www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?STORY_ID=5128&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=5
‘Interview with Emma Donoghue’, by Heather A. O’Neill, 12 January 2008, www.afterellen.com/people/2008/1/emmadonoghue
‘Writer has a Deft Touch with Sexual Identities’, by Judy Stoffman, TORONTO STAR, 13 January 2007
‘Protean Talent’, by Charlotte Abbott, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, 10 October 2004
‘An Interview with Emma Donoghue’, by Luan Gaines, www.curledup.com/intdono.htm
‘Meet the Writers: Emma Donoghue’, www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writerdetails.asp?z=y&cid=1023877#interview
‘Emma Donoghue Finds Intrigue among the 18th-Century Rich and Famous’, by Stephanie Swilley, www.bookpage.com/0410bp/emma_donoghue.html
‘An Interview With Emma Donoghue’, www.bibliofemme.com/interviews/donoghue.shtml
‘A Liking to be Noticed’, SUNDAY INDEPENDENT (Ireland), 1 August 2004
‘Behind the Mask’, TIME OUT (London), 16-23 June 2004
Interview in IRISH WOMEN WRITERS SPEAK OUT, by Caitriona Moloney and Helen Thompson (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002), 169-180
‘Don’t Tell Me You’ve Never Heard of Emma Donoghue’ (cover story), EYE WEEKLY (Toronto), 17 October 2002
‘Swings and Roundabouts: An Interview with Emma Donoghue’, IRISH STUDIES REVIEW, 8, No. 1 (2000): 73-81.
Profile in January Magazine, www.januarymagazine.com/profiles/donoghue.html (November 2000)
'Emma's Exploits', GLOBE AND MAIL (Canada), 7 October 2000
'Taking Readers Where They Can't Go on Holidays', BOOKS IRELAND, September 2000
'Loose Lives', IRISH EXAMINER, 5 August 2000
'All Het Up', TIME OUT (UK) 2 August 2000
'Writer in Residence', IMAGE MAGAZINE (Ireland), July 2000
'From Page to Stage in Style', BAY AREA REPORTER (San Francisco), 8 June 2000
'Women's Passions of the Millennium', HARVARD GAY & LESBIAN REVIEW, Fall 1999 (IV:4)
'Irish Spring', BAY AREA REPORTER (San Francisco), 1 April 1999
'Writing Her Own Fairy Tale', SUNDAY INDEPENDENT (Ireland), 14 September 1997
'Feminist Fables,' DIVA, June 1997
'We've a Long Way to Go', GAY COMMUNITY NEWS (Ireland), April 1997
'Clothes Make the Man,' IN DUBLIN, 25 April 1996
'Sect Goddess,' DIVA, April 1995
'Family Ties: Frances Donoghue on her daughter, Emma Donoghue,' SUNDAY TRIBUNE, 26 March 1995
'Relative Values: Emma Donoghue, lesbian novelist and playwright, and her father, Denis, academic and critic,' SUNDAY TIMES, 26 March 1995
'The Bishop and the Lesbian,' GUARDIAN, 22 March 1995
'Faith, Hope and Sexual Clarity,' TIMES, 23 February 1995
'Women in Love', IRISH TIMES, 14 April 1993
Literary Criticism
Jennifer Orme, ‘Mouth to Mouth: Queer Desires in Emma Donoghue’s KISSING THE WITCH’, in MARVELS & TALES, 24:1 (2010), 116-30. A particularly intelligent analysis of what’s going on in KISSING THE WITCH.
Ann Martin, ‘Generational Collaborations in Emma Donoghue’s KISSING THE WITCH: OLD TALES IN NEW SKINS’, in CHILDREN’S LITERATURE ASSOCIATION QUARTERLY, 35:1 (Spring 2010), 4-25
Marisol Morales Ladron (Universidad de Alcala), ‘The Representation of Motherhood in Emma Donoghue’s SLAMMERKIN’, in IRISH UNIVERSITY REVIEW (March 2009)
Tristanne Connolly (St Jerome’s University), ‘Emma Donoghue’s Archival Short Stories: THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO RABBITS’, paper delivered at University of Tokyo (2009)
Moira Casey (Miami University Middleton), ‘”If Love’s a Country”: Transnational Feminism in Emma Donoghue’s LANDING’, paper delivered at American Conference on Irish Studies (2009)
Stacia Bensyl (Missouri Western State University), ‘Technological Entanglements: Emma Donoghue’s LANDING’, paper delivered at ACIS Midwestern (2009)
Stacia Bensyl (Missouri Western State University), ‘Emma Donoghue’s LIFE MASK: Rhetoric of Hate and Terror’, in SAPPHISTS AND SEXOLOGISTS: HISTORIES OF SEXUALITIES: VOLUME 2, ed. Sonja Tiernan and Mary McAuliffe, (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 41-55
Panel on Emma Donoghue at Queering Ireland Conference (Halifax, 2009):
Libe García Zarranz (University of Alberta), ‘Geopolitical and Gender Border Crossings in Emma Donoghue’s LANDING’
Clare Mulcahy (University of Alberta), ‘Religion, the Irish Nation and Lesbianism in Emma Donoghue’s HOOD’
Hannah McGregory (University of Alberta), ‘The Witch, the Dwarf and the Blind Girl: Queering the Body in Emma Donoghue’s THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO RABBITS’
Donna Potts (Kansas State University), ‘“Wales is Where England Runs Out”: Celt/Saxon Dichotomy in Emma Donoghue’s SLAMMERKIN’, Wales/Ireland Postgraduate Symposium (Cardiff University), 2009
Martine Hennard Dutheil de la Rochere (University of Lausanne), ‘Queering the Fairy Tale Canon: Emma Donoghue’s KISSING THE WITCH’, in FAIRYTALE REIMAGINED: ESSAYS ON NEW RETELLINGS, ed. Susan Redington Bobby and Kate Bernheimer (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009).
Linden Peach, CONTEMPORARY IRISH AND WELSH WOMEN’S FICTION: GENDER, DESIRE AND POWER (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007), sections on THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO RABBITS (30-43) and STIRFRY (45-51). He offers the best analysis I know of THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO RABBITS.
Libe García Zarranz (University of Zaragoza), ‘Intertextuality, Parody and Jouissance in Emma Donoghue's KISSING THE WITCH’, paper delivered at New Voices in Irish Criticism International Postgraduate Conference 2007.
Shauna Goble (Appalachian State University)," ‘A skin that had split, and been shed’: Female Identity and Sexuality in Emma Donoghue’s SLAMMERKIN and HOOD’, paper delivered at ACIS South (2007)
Constance Bracewell (Appalachian State University), "The Naming of the Screw: Incommensurate Sexual Paradigms in Emma Donoghue’s HOOD’, paper delivered at ACIS South Conference (2007)
Libe García (University of Zaragoza), ‘Landscapes of Transgression in Emma Donoghue’s KISSING THE WITCH’, paper delivered at Women in Irish Culture and History Conference (University College Dublin, 2006)
Angela Slatter, discussion of KISSING THE WITCH in her Masters of Research thesis ‘Black-Winged Angels: Theoretical Underpinnings’ (A Short Story Collection and Exegesis), 2006, http://eprints.qut.edu.au/16351/2/Angela_Slatter_Exegesis.pdf
Kristina Quynn (Michigan State University), ‘Eccentric Moves : Irishness and Gender sans Exile in Emma Donoghue’s TOUCHY SUBJECTS’, paper delivered at Women in Irish Culture and History Conference (University College Dublin, 2006)
Maureen E. Mulvihill, ‘Emma Donoghue’, in IRISH WOMEN WRITERS : AN A-Z GUIDE, ed. Alexander G. Gonzales (Westwood, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2006), 98-101.
Brian Cliff (Trinity College Dublin), ‘Anne Enright and Emma Donoghue: The Desire to Belong in Contemporary Irish Fiction’, paper delivered at IASIL Conference (Sydney, 2006).
Ann Martin (Dalhousie University) ‘Skinning the Wolf in Emma Donoghue's KISSING THE WITCH’, paper delivered at ACCUTE Conference (York Univeristy, Toronto), 2006
Eibhear Walshe, ‘Emma Donoghue, b. 1969’, in Anthony Roche, ed. THE UCD AESTHETIC: CELEBRATING 150 YEARS OF UCD WRITERS (Dublin: New Island, 2005), 274-84. Insightful analysis, especially of triangles in STIRFRY, HOOD, SLAMMERKIN and LIFE MASK.
Rebecca Pelan, TWO IRELANDS: LITERARY FEMINISMS NORTH AND SOUTH (Syracuse, NY: Syracure University Press, 2005), 10-12. An intelligent reading of ‘big house’ and Joycean motifs in HOOD.
Elizabeth Marshall (Simon Fraser University), ‘“Fairy tale girlhoods in Emma Donoghue’s KISSING THE WITCH’, paper delivered at Women’s Studies Department, University of California, Berkeley (2005).
Linden Peach, THE CONTEMPORARY IRISH NOVEL: CRITICAL READINGS (New York: Palgrave, 2004), sections on SLAMMERKIN (12, 76-84) and STIRFRY (106-15). Peach’s excellent analysis is marred only by his idea that STIRFRY is set in the 1960s, rather than the late 1980s – but then, Ireland in the 1980s did feel at least twenty years behind the rest of the West.
Kersti Tarien Powell, ‘Emma Donoghue’, in IRISH FICTION: AN INTRODUCTION (New York and London: Continuum, 2004), 108-110.
Ellen Crowell (University of Texas at Austin),’Nothing Comfortable About This Love: Emma Donoghue's 'Words for Things’,’ paper delivered at ACIS (2003).
Jennifer M. Jeffers, THE IRISH NOVEL AT THE END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: GENDER, BODIES AND POWER (New York: Palgrave, 2002), sections on STIRFRY (90-99) and HOOD (100-07).
Stacia L. Bensyl, ‘Emma Donoghue’, DICTIONARY OF LITERARY BIOGRAPHY VOL. 267, TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY BRITISH AND IRISH NOVELISTS, ed. by Michael R. Molino (Columbia, SC: Bruccoli Clark Layman, Inc, forthcoming 2002)
Fiorenzo Fantaccini, ‘”Old Tales in New Skins”: le fiabre in genere di Emma Donoghue’, in LE RISCRITTURE DEL POSTMODERNO: PERCORSI ANGLOAMERICANI, ed. by Ornella De Zordo and Fiorenzo Fantaccini (Bari: Palomar, 2002)
Elizabeth Wanning Harries, TWICE UPON A TIME: WOMEN WRITERS AND THE HISTORY OF THE FAIRY TALE (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), section on KISSING THE WITCH (129-134).
Anne Fogarty (National University of Ireland), ‘Lesbian Texts and Contexts: The Fiction of Emma Donoghue and Mary Dorcey’, paper delivered at Munster Women Writers Conference (2001).
Susan Sellers, ‘Bodies of Power: Beauty Myths in Tales by Marina Warner, Emma Donoghue, Sheri Tepper and Alice Thompson’, in MYTH AND FAIRY TALE IN CONTEMPORARY WOMEN’S FICTION (New York: Palgrave, 2001)
Maria Micaela Coppola, ‘The Gender of Fairies: Emma Donoghue and Angela Carter as Fairy Tale Performers’, in TEXTUS: ENGLISH STUDIES IN ITALY, XIV:1 (2001)
Anna McMullan, ‘Gender, Authorship and Performance in Selected Plays by Contemporary Women Playwrights: Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy, Marie Jones, Marina Carr, Emma Donoghue’, in THEATRE STUFF: CRITICAL ESSAYS ON CONTEMPORARY IRISH THEATRE, ed. Eamonn Jordan (Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2000), 34-46.
Antoinette Quinn, 'New Noises from the Woodshed: The Novels of Emma Donoghue,' in CONTEMPORARY IRISH FICTION: THEMES, TROPES, THEORIES, ed. by Liam Harte and Michael Parker (London: Macmillan, and New York: St Martin's, 2000), pp.145-167
Paulina Palmer, LESBIAN GOTHIC (London and New York: Cassell, 1999), discussions of HOOD, 50-51, 61-63, 85-90, 149-50.
S. Díez, "Women's Homoerotic Voice in the Works of Emma Donoghue: Discovery and Assertion", paper delivered at IASIL (1999).
Christina Hunt Mahony, CONTEMPORARY IRISH LITERATURE: TRANSFORMING TRADITION (1998), discussions of STIRFRY and HOOD, 265-67
Rachel Wingfield, 'Lesbian Writers in the Mainstream: Sarah Maitland, Jeanette Winterson and Emma Donoghue' in BEYOND SEX AND ROMANCE: THE POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY LESBIAN FICTION, ed. by Elaine Hutton (London: Women's Press, 1998)
Yolanda González Molano, ‘De/Transforming Ireland : Lesbian Identity in Emma Donoghue’s Stirfry’, in Ana Antón-Pacheca et al, ed. Estudios de la mujer en el ámbito de los paises de habla inglesa (Madrid : Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1998)
Tonie van Marle, 'Emma Donoghue' in GAY AND LESBIAN LITERATURE: VOLUME TWO, ed. by Tom Pendergast and Sara Pendergast (Detroit: St James Press, 1998)
Gerry Smyth, THE NOVEL AND THE NATION: STUDIES IN THE NEW IRISH FICTION (London: Pluto, 1997)
Marilyn R. Farwell, HETEROSEXUAL PLOTS AND LESBIAN NARRATIVES (New York and London: New York University Press, 1996), 170-71, 176
Selected Reviews
ROOM
‘This Book Will Break Your Heart’, Declan Hughes, IRISH TIMES, 24 July 2010
‘A Room With a View’, Mary Shine Thompson, IRISH INDEPENDENT, 24 July 2010
‘Upstairs, Downstairs… A Child’s Chamber of Horrors’, Nicola Barr, OBSERVER, 1 August 2010
INSEPARABLE
‘From Sappho to ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’ ‘, Kathryn Harrison, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 20 May 2010
‘Inseparable : Desire Between Women In Literature’, M. M Adjarian, EDGE, 11 June 2010
THE SEALED LETTER
‘A Woman of the World’, Marilynn Richtarik, IRISH LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, Fall 2008
‘Suffering Suffragist’, Susann Cokal, NEW YORK TIMES, 5 October 2008
‘Dalliance and Divorce in Victoria’s England’, Cynthia MacDonald, GLOBE AND MAIL, 19 April 2008
LANDING
‘In Flight Moves’, Sylvia Brownrigg, NEW YORK TIMES, 22 July 2007
TOUCHY SUBJECTS
‘Plucked With Tweezers’, Stevie Davies, GUARDIAN, 16 Dec 06
‘Tales Beyond the Cringe’, Viv Groskop, OBSERVER, 31 Dec 06
‘Fizz, Fun and Fecundity’, Anakana Schofield, GLOBE AND MAIL, 23 Dec 06
‘The Political Is Personal’, Tibor Fischer, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 17 September 2006
‘Touchy Subjects’, KIRKUS, 1 April 2006
LIFE MASK
‘Looking For the Limelight’, Julia Livshin, WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD, 10 October 2004
‘Eliza’s New Pygmalion On the Georgian Stage Set’, Dermot Bolger, SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, 5 September 2004
‘Sense, Sensibility… and Sex’, Karen Solie, GLOBE AND MAIL, 31 July 2004
‘When Three Is a Crowd’, Edel Coffey, SUNDAY TRIBUNE (Ireland), July 2004
‘Life Mask’, KIRKUS, 1 July 2004
‘Female Friendship’, Lorna Gibb, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, 25 June 2004
THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO RABBITS
‘Rescued from History’, Alex Clark, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, 7 June 2002
‘Cabinet of Wonders’, Carrie Brown, WASHINGTON POST, 19 May 2002
‘'Woman' Enchants in Fact-based Fancy’, SEATTLE TIMES, 28 April 2002
‘The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits’, KIRKUS, March 2002
SLAMMERKIN
‘For Want of a Few Fine Things,' by Vince Passaro, ELLE, July 2001
'Satin Doll,' by Zofia Smardz, WASHINGTON POST, 17 June 2001
'Messy Business,' by Vicky Allan, SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY, 6 August 2000
'Tart with an Exotic Flavour,' by Eve Patten, IRISH TIMES, 29 July 2000
'The Sinful Price of a Dress Called Skin,' by Fiona Shaw, FINANCIAL TIMES, 22 July 2000
'Cullies, Strollers, Mollies and Pimps,' by Alev Adil, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, 21 July 2000
WE ARE MICHAEL FIELD
'Poets and Lovers Ever More,' by Ed Madden, GAY AND LESBIAN REVIEW WORLDWIDE, Winter 2000
‘We Are Michael Field’, K. L. Thomas, VICTORIAN STUDIES Winter 1999-200 (42:2), 312-14
'A World of Women,' by Terry Wolverton, LAMBDA BOOK REPORT, September 1999
'Inseparable, Incestuous and Intense,' by Barbara Grier, LAMBDA BOOK REPORT, September 1999
KISSING THE WITCH
'Kissing the Witch,' by Jen Nessel, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 21 September 1997
'Girlpower,' by Jane Humphries, BOOKS IRELAND, Summer 1997
'Present and Correct,' by Beatric Colin, SCOTSMAN, 31 May 1997
'Seeped in a Special Magic,' by Evelyn Conlon, SUNDAY TRIBUNE, 4 May 1997
'Girl Meets Girl,' by Fintan O'Toole, IRISH TIMES, 30 April 1997
'Complex, Charming and Confusing,' SUNDAY TRIBUNE, April 1997
HOOD
'Death in Dublin,' by Catherine Lockerbie, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, 24 March 1996
'Emma Donoghue: Love Mourned and Remembered,' by E.J.Graff, BOSTON GLOBE, 17 March 1996
'Daughters of Sappho,' by R.L.Widmann, WASHINGTON POST, 24 September 1995
STIR-FRY
'Rhymes With Pariah,' by Charlotte Innes, LAMBDA BOOK REPORT No. 28, 1994
'Stirring Stuff,' by Sara Dunn, TIME OUT, 13 February 1994
'Take Three Girls,' by Michele Roberts, SUNDAY TIMES, 13 February 1994
'New Tastes in a New World,' by Eileen Battersby, IRISH TIMES, 22 January 1994
'A Sturdy Grip on the Literary Ladder,' by Joe O'Connor, SUNDAY TRIBUNE 2 January 1994