Roddy Doyle’s eleventh novel, Smile, is the kind of book that is difficult to talk about unless it’s with someone else who has read it; a powerful novel with an ending that forces you to look at the whole book anew. Waterstones got the chance to speak to him about the real-life event behind this book, his love of dialogue and his work to help the writers of tomorrow find their own voices. Smile is available now here.

Roddy Doyle: ‘The work I’ve done? If I wasn’t me, I’d be impressed’.

The Dubliner on the savagery of school, how being famous is easy in Ireland, and getting older.

You can read the full interview here.

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Guardian Edinburgh books podcast: Roddy Doyle and Mark Forsyth

11 August 2013

Jimmy Rabbitte of The Commitments makes a happy return – as do some of the more exotic words in the world’s dictionaries.

It’s 27 years since Roddy Doyle’s Jimmy Rabbitte started trying to import soul to Dublin. Doyle joins us to update us on his hapless hero, now aged 47 and suffering from bowel cancer. If Jimmy’s stock in trade is the single evasive word – “grand” – Mark Forsyth’s is all the words he might have used were he to have had had access to some of the world’s smaller dictionaries.

Listen to the Podcast. 

Read Roddy Doyle’s interview with Jake Kerridge for The Telegraph. 

There is something about Roddy Doyle that reminds you, when you meet him, that he worked as a teacher for many years, even after he had become one of Ireland’s biggest literary celebrities. He has the air of the schoolmaster – a gently sardonic manner belied by the enthusiasm glinting in the eyes behind his owlish specs. My guess is he was a very good one…

Read in interview. 

Edinburgh International Book Festival .

The author of the best selling novel The Commitments, joins Janice Forsyth to talk about his new novel The Dead Republic.

Listen to the show.

Ireland has excelled – both in literature in general, winning four Nobel Prizes, which for a country of four million is some kind of record – and in the short story. This week, the magic of the Irish short story, then and now – with Roddy Doyle, Claire Keegan and Kevin Barry.

Kevin Barry’s book of short stories, There Are Little Kingdoms is published by Stinging Fly Press, and he has a novel coming out next year. Roddy Doyle recently published a collection of short stories called The Deportees. Claire Keegan has two books of stories, Antarctica and Walk the Blue Fields, both published in paperback by Faber and Faber.

Listen to the show

Friday, 26th of March 2010. Click here.

Roddy recently gave the Fickling Annual Lecture at Newcastle University. If you want to hear a recording go to the following link, for download or streaming.