Robert McLiam Wilson

Robert McLiam Wilson ( born February 24, 1964 in Belfast, Northern Ireland ) is a Northern Irish writer.

Life and work

McLiam Wilson grew up with six siblings ( one of whom died early) in a working class family in Belfast. He began studying at St Catharine 's College, Cambridge, but broke it off and was temporarily homeless.

In 1989 he published his first novel Ripley Bogle. It is about a homeless in London and was awarded with several prizes, including the Irish Book Award. The protagonist of his second novel Manfred 's Pain (1992 ) is an old man, whose life story is told in flashbacks. Eureka Street ( 1996) describes in a humorous way the friendship between a Protestant and a Catholic in Belfast against the background of the IRA ceasefire of 1994. Another novel called The Extremists has been announced for several years, but has not yet been released.

McLiam Wilson also wrote (along with Donovan Wylie ) a study on poverty in the UK ( The Dispossessed, 1992), was a journalist, and has made a documentary film about the conflict in Northern Ireland for the BBC. In 2012 he wrote the words to the photo book Wild Man of the French photographer Charles Fréger.

Wilson was married and lives in Paris.