Desert Island Discs

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Castaway guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

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Desert Island Discs: Anne Enright, writer

Anne Enright, writer

BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Anne Enright, writer

Anne Enright, writer, shares the soundtrack of her life with Lauren Laverne.

Anne Enright, writer, shares the eight tracks, book and luxury she would take with her if cast away to a desert island. With Lauren Laverne.

Anne Enright won the Booker Prize for her fourth novel, The Gathering, in 2007, and was appointed the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction in 2015.  She has written seven novels, two collections of short stories and a book of essays about motherhood and her work has been widely translated. 

Born in Dublin in 1962, Anne is the youngest of five children.  She was a voracious reader from an early age, finishing every children's book at her local library. When she was 16, she won a scholarship to study at a school in Canada, and then returned to Ireland for a degree in English and Philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin. After taking an MA in Creative Writing at University of East Anglia, with teaching from Angela Carter and Malcolm Bradbury, she worked for six years as a TV producer for the Irish broadcaster RTE.  When her TV work left her feeling burned out, she began her writing career in earnest.  Her book of short stories, The Portable Virgin, won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 1991, and she published her first novel, The Wig My Father Wore, in 1995. Her latest novel, The Actress, is published in February 2020.

She is also now a Professor at University College Dublin and teaches creative writing.  She met her theatre director husband, Martin Murphy, at university and they have two children.  

DISC ONE: Brahms Intermezzos: Op. 117, No.1 by Glenn Gould    
DISC TWO: Jersey Girl by Tom Waits   
DISC THREE: A Case Of You by Joni Mitchell   
DISC FOUR: Then You’ll Remember Me by Dé Danann
DISC FIVE: The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash
DISC SIX: Hiawatha by Laurie Anderson    
DISC SEVEN: Tower of Song by Leonard Cohen   
DISC EIGHT: Soave sia il vento from Cosi fan Tutte, composed by Mozart, conducted by Karl Böhm, performed by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf,  Walter Berry, Christa Ludwig and Philharmonia Orchestra.  

BOOK CHOICE: 'In Search of Lost Time’ by Marcel Proust   
LUXURY ITEM: High thread-count cotton sheets
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Soave sia il vento from Cosi fan Tutte, composed by Mozart 

Presenter:  Lauren Laverne
Producer:  Cathy Drysdale

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Desert Island Discs

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