Eimear McBride at Martin Harris Centre

Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor

Book now

Literature Live: Eimear McBride

17 February 2020

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

Eimear McBride. Photo by Sophie Bassouls.
Writer Eimear McBride. Photo by Sophie Bassouls.
Book now

Manchester Literature Festival and the Centre for New Writing with Creative Manchester are delighted to present a “Literature Live” evening welcoming award-winning Irish novelist Eimear McBride.

Eimear has already published two acclaimed and uncompromising novels, A Girl is a Half-formed Thing (which won both the inaugural Goldsmiths Prize in 2013 and the Baileys Women’s Fiction Prize in 2o14) and The Lesser Bohemians (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize). At this intimate Manchester event, Eimear will read from her third novel, Strange Hotel, which is out on 6 February with Faber & Faber. She will discuss her career and inspirations with host Vona Groarke, poet and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing.

Described as ‘remarkable, ‘urgent and immersive’, and ‘intricately constructed’, Strange Hotel is a novel of enduring emotional force

Described as “remarkable”, “urgent and immersive”, and “intricately constructed”, Strange Hotel is a novel of enduring emotional force and an indelible portrait of a woman’s mind as she wrestles with her desires and memories.

The blurb says: “A nameless woman enters a nondescript hotel room. She’s been here once before, many years ago. The room hasn’t changed, but she has. From Auckland to Avignon, Oslo to Austin, over the coming years she will occupy a series of other hotel rooms. Each is as featureless and impersonal as the last. But these rooms have rules of their own: how loss is negotiated within them, and what boundaries to impose on the men she sometimes meets there.”

This (and Isabel Allende at the Danchouse, also in February) is a precursor event to this year’s Manchester Literature Festival, which runs 2-18 October 2020.

Where to go near Eimear McBride at Martin Harris Centre

Cafe at the Museum
Manchester
Café or Coffee Shop
The Cafe
at the Museum

Manchester Museum’s cafe is run by the people behind award-winning cafe Teacup Kitchen. The menu features home-baked cakes, the finest loose leaf teas and breakfast, as well as a wide selection of mains and meals for kids.

Whitworth Park, Manchester
Manchester
Park
Whitworth Park

This 18-acre park opposite the Manchester Royal Infirmary provides a welcome patch of green in an otherwise densely populated and heavily used part of the city.

Manchester
Music venue
Manchester Academy 3

Brilliant venue for catching a touring band on the rise. The boringly titled Academy 3 or more interesting Hop and Grape, as it was once known, is a self contained…

Manchester Academy music venue on Oxford Road Manchester.
Manchester
Music venue
Manchester Academy

The Manchester Academy is a mid size, modern warehouse venue adjacent to the University of Manchester Students’ Union. It lacks any architectural merit and has always been a difficult place…

Manchester
Shop
Want Not Waste

Want Not Waste is a student-run, not-for-profit zero waste shop operating out of Academy 1 at the University of Manchester Students’ Union.

Universally Manchester Festival 6-9 June 2024
Manchester
The University of Manchester

Celebrating its 200th year in 2024, The University of Manchester is the largest single-site university in the UK, and boasts come incredible cultural institutions, found on campus, across Manchester and…

Manchester
Bar or Pub
Big Hands

Big Hands is the one-time haunt of legendary Manchester band Elbow; it’s shabby, loud and dark, with a jukebox and excellent roof terrace.

Manchester
Bar or Pub
Kro Bar

Kro Bar, Manchester is an independent pub and music venue housed (somewhat ironically) in the former Temperance Society building.

What's on: Literature

Deryn Rees-Jones. Credit Alison Dodd Photography
LiteratureLiverpool
Deryn Rees-Jones at Open Eye Gallery

For the seventh Matt Simpson Memorial Reading, hosted by Liverpool Poetry Space (LiPS), Deryn Rees-Jones will be reading from her new collection, Hôtel Amour.

Free entry

Culture Guides

Hofesh Shechter - Theatre of Dreams at Lowry
Theatre in the North

Picks this month include bold visual art, wondrous opera and cinematic dance - plus a touch of ghostly storytelling for the Halloween season.

Poet Helen Mort.
Literature Events in the North

One to add to your TBR pile, our latest round-up is a bumper edition and features some amazing events in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and beyond...

A white mattress is burning in a black rocky landscape.
Exhibitions in the North

Galleries in the North are far from spooky this October - instead you'll find tactile sculptures, plant magic and curatorial experiments.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Cinema in the North

It's busy month across the cinemas of the north as Halloween programming leads into two of the region's biggest film festivals.

Music in the North

From New York’s experimental underground to the most exciting sounds coming from local scenes, we're lining up a noisy autumn of gigs.