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Claire-Louise Bennett
Claire-Louise Bennett grew up in Wiltshire and studied literature and drama at the University of Roehampton, before settling in Galway. Her short fiction and essays have been published in The Stinging Fly, The Penny Dreadful, The Moth, Colony, The Irish Times, The White Review and gorse. She was awarded the inaugural White Review Short Story Prize in 2013 and has received bursaries from the Arts Council and Galway City Council. Her debut novel, Pondwas published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2015 and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2016. Her second novel, Checkout 19, is published by Jonathan Cape in August 2021.

Articles Available Online


The Russian Man

Fiction

Issue No. 27

Claire-Louise Bennett

Fiction

Issue No. 27

Many years ago a large Russian man with the longest tendrils of the softest white hair came to live in the fastest growing town...

poetry

Issue No. 13

Morning, Noon & Night

Claire-Louise Bennett

poetry

Issue No. 13

Sometimes a banana with coffee is nice. It ought not to be too ripe – in fact there should...

As they say of politics, I have found essay-writing to be the art of the possible Certain work can only be done in those spooky months when particular trajectories align: what was once opaque becomes transparent, and the story may be told in its complete complexity Try to write such an essay at the wrong moment and your movement will be impeded You will have the rudimentary shape you want, but all the curves and angles and lines will remain coarse – crude, compared to what you might have written had you waited   I only really came to understand these things when I began to imagine an essay that I knew I must write, but equally knew I would fail at For years I waited, and if I try to write it now, it is owing to an intuition that has arrived as a blessing of maturity I have become the writer who might accomplish this task On top of that, something has informed me that for a few ripe months the barriers are down, and I may cross in and out of this longed-for terrain unimpeded   I must get this essay right Each word that I put down becomes a part of my living memory – in a very real sense this is self-creation – and that first cut is always the deepest Yes, it is possible to work around the scar later on – to revise, reformulate, rediscover, redirect – but that first attempt is decisive Everything grows from those initial, indelible words   It was a midsummer’s evening, and through the window looking down on the bay the sky reddened, the sun sank beneath the earth That declining sun brought me fear I reasoned to myself that so long as I could see the light, I was safe from whatever had come unleashed in my mind But as that blackness climbed over the land, so too did some blackness encompass my head This is illogical, I know – magical thinking – but these were my terms that evening I was truly afraid of what the dark of night would bring

Contributor

August 2014

Claire-Louise Bennett

Contributor

August 2014

Claire-Louise Bennett grew up in Wiltshire and studied literature and drama at the University of Roehampton, before settling in...

The Lady of the House

fiction

Issue No. 8

Claire-Louise Bennett

fiction

Issue No. 8

Wow it’s so still. Isn’t it eerie. Oh yes. So calm. Everything’s still. That’s right. Look at the rowers – look at how fast...

READ NEXT

fiction

Issue No. 8

Estate

China Miéville

fiction

Issue No. 8

Two nights running I woke up with my heart going crazy. The first time, as I lay there in...

fiction

Issue No. 3

Rehearsal Room

KJ Orr

fiction

Issue No. 3

He was one of those people you see every day and start to believe you know when in fact...

feature

Issue No. 2

Gay Madonnas in Montevergine: The Feast of Mamma Schiavona

Annabel Howard

feature

Issue No. 2

We are crowded into the medium-sized piazza before the sanctuary of Montevergine. There is no town or village; it...

 

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