Stewart Parker
James Stewart Parker ( born October 20, 1941 in Belfast, † November 2, 1988 in London) was an Irish poet and playwright.
Life and work
Stewart Parker grew up in a Protestant working class family in Belfast suburb of Sydenham. When he was 19 years old, he was diagnosed with bone cancer, and one leg had to be amputated. At that time he already studying on a scholarship in English literature at Queen's University of Belfast. After graduating with a Master in 1965 he taught in the USA. In 1969 he returned to Belfast and wrote some years as a music critic for the Irish Times. Later he lived in Edinburgh and London, where he died in 1988 of stomach cancer.
Parker published at the end of the sixties, first poems, from the mid-seventies, he focused on theater pieces, most of which are under the sign of postmodernism and deal with the conflict in Northern Ireland, its history and its impact on people. He also wrote a number of radio and television games.
After his death, the Stewart Parker Trust Award was created for the best debut of an Irish playwright to life. Conor McPherson was one of the winners.