“On the brink of the absolutely forbidden”: In conversation with Mary Morrissy

Mary Morrissy (Dublin, 1957) belongs to the generation of women writers excluded from the Field Day Anthology in the 1990s, only to be included in a dedicated volume in 2003. By then she had become a distinguished literary voice in Ireland (having published a collection of short stories, and two novels). After The Rising of Bella Casey (2013), Morrissy returned to the short story in the form of an adaptation of Joyce’s “An Encounter” (2014), and a collection of short stories entitled Prosperity Drive (2016). Situated where history, biography and fiction intersect, her works deal with Ireland’s recent cultural developments and situations of marginality risking social exclusion, gender inequality, an indelible past and the dominance of religion. Standing “on the brink of the absolutely forbidden”, her protagonists, like her writing, yearn to break taboos and liberate the imagination, and they do so in a daringly powerful way.