Jennifer Johnston
Jennifer Johnston is an acclaimed Irish novelist and playwright, born in Dublin in 1930 to prominent artistic parents, playwright Denis Johnston and actress Sheelagh Richards. Despite facing challenges from a young age, including partial albinism which contributed to her shyness, Johnston pursued her creative ambitions. She began her education at Park House School, where she nurtured her writing skills, later attending Trinity College Dublin. After her marriage to lawyer Ian Smyth, with whom she had four children, Johnston shifted her focus from acting to writing, achieving success with her debut novel, *The Captains and the Kings*, published in 1972.
Her works often explore themes central to Irish society, such as the struggles between religion and social classes, and personal experiences shaped by Ireland's political landscape. Notable books include *Shadows on Our Skin* and *The Railway Station Man*, as well as more personal narratives like *The Gingerbread Woman* and *A Sixpenny Song*. Throughout her career, Johnston has received numerous accolades, including the Irish PEN Award and the Irish Book Awards lifetime achievement award. Renowned for her precise use of language, she is recognized as a significant contributor to contemporary Irish literature.
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Jennifer Johnston
Author
- Born: January 12, 1930
- Place of Birth: Dublin, Ireland
Biography
Jennifer Johnston was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1930, the daughter of prominent Irish playwright Denis Johnston and actress and director Sheelagh Richards. Johnston was born with partial albinism, a condition that forced her to wear dark glasses and caused her to feel shy and socially awkward as a child. Her parents separated before World War II, and she lived with her mother and brother, Michael, rarely seeing her father. She was educated at Park House School, where she wrote plays for student productions but claimed that the strongest habit she picked up there was laziness, as she learned that it was possible to get by in life doing little or no work. She attended Trinity College in Dublin, where she was a classmate of writer J. P. Donleavy (author of The Ginger Man), but she failed her examinations and left school in 1951 to marry lawyer Ian Smyth, with whom she had four children.
During her marriage, Johnston pursued the acting ambitions she had harbored since childhood, earning a small part in Bertolt Brecht’s Saint Joan of the Stockyards in 1960. She did not enjoy her foray into acting and turned her attention to writing when her husband bought her a typewriter. She began to have some success as a novelist, and she claims that the failure of her marriage dates from the beginning of her career as a serious writer. After divorcing Smyth, she married lawyer David Gilliland in 1976.
In 1972 Johnston published The Captains and the Kings, which introduced the themes she explored throughout her career: Ireland’s troubles, the clash between religion and social classes, and the effect of these clashes on family life. The novels that follow, The Gates (1973), How Many Miles to Babylon? (1974), and The Old Jest (1979), continue to examine these themes of alienation. Shadows on Our Skin (1977) deals with the relationship between a Protestant teacher and a Roman Catholic schoolboy, and The Railway Station Man (1984) examines the modern Irish Republican Army. Her later work veers away from the historical to the more personal, as exemplified in novels such as The Illusionist (1995) and The Invisible Worm (1992). She continued to deal with familial and personal troubles, often informed by Irish political tumult, in novels such as The Gingerbread Woman (2000), about two people who have lost loved ones in a terrorist attack connecting over their shared grief, This Is Not a Novel (2002), about a woman's search for her missing brother leading her to investigate her family's past in World War I–era Ireland, Foolish Mortals (2007), about a man with partial amnesia navigating a Christmas dinner with his dysfunctional family, and A Sixpenny Song (2013), in which a young woman returns from London to her small Irish hometown after her domineering father's death and uncovers family secrets. Her 2015 novel, Naming the Stars, explored the lives of a family after suffering a devastating loss in World War II.
Johnston also wrote a number of plays. Her short play "Andante Un Poco Mosso" was selected for inclusion in The Best Short Plays 1983.
Johnston received the Robert Pitman Literary Prize and the Yorkshire Post Award for best first book for The Captains and the Kings, the 1979 Whitbread Award for The Old Jest, and the Giles Cooper Award for Best Radio play in 1989. The Invisible Worm was short-listed for the Daily Express best book of the year for 1992, and Shadows on Our Skin was short-listed for the Booker Prize. She won the Irish PEN Award, honoring writers who have made a significant contribution to Irish literature, in 2006, and received the Irish Book Awards lifetime achievement award in 2012. She was praised for her efficient, precise use of language, and her ability to extract nuance out of few words.
Bibliography
Bradford, Richard. "The Legacies of Jennifer Johnston." Spectator, 12 Nov. 2011, www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-legacies-of-jennifer-johnston/. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.
Cowan, Rosie. "The Quiet Woman." Guardian, 11 Feb. 2004, www.theguardian.com/books/2004/feb/11/fiction.rosiecowan. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.
Genet, Jacqueline. The Big House in Ireland: Reality and Representation. Savage: Barnes, 1991. Print.
"Jennifer Johnston." Booker Prize, 2024, thebookerprizes.com/archive/authors/jennifer-johnston. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.
"Jennifer Johnston." British Council Literature, 2015, literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/jennifer-johnston. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.
Leavy, Adrienne. "In Praise of Jennifer Johnston." Irish Times, 9 Apr. 2015, www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/in-praise-of-jennifer-johnston-1.2168695. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.