Ronan Bennett
Encyclopedia
Ronan Bennett is a Northern Irish
novelist and screenwriter. He was raised in a devout Roman Catholic
family headed by William H. and Geraldine Bennett at 420 Merville Garden Village
in the Whitehouse area of Newtownabbey
, Northern Ireland. Since its development in the late-1940s, Merville has always been proud of its mixed Roman Catholic/Protestant make up. Bennett attended the Christian Brothers Grammar School in West Belfast (generally known as St Mary's CBGS).
during an Official IRA
bank robbery at the Ulster Bank in The Diamond shopping area at Rathcoole
, close to his Merville Garden Village home, on 6 September 1974. His conviction was overturned on appeal in 1975 and Bennett was released from Long Kesh prison near Lisburn, Co. Antrim. Later Bennett apparently displayed a sympathy towards the Irish National Liberation Army
(INLA), which made its name after it killed Margaret Thatcher
's Northern Ireland advisor Airey Neave
in 1979.
Bennett then moved to London. In 1978 he was arrested for conspiracy to cause explosions and spent 16 months in prison on remand. Bennett conducted his own defence, and he and his co-defendants were acquitted in 1979. He studied history at King's College London
receiving a first class honours degree, and later completed his Ph.D.
at the college in 1987.
just before independence, with the rise and fall of Patrice Lumumba
as political backdrop, The Catastrophist is the story of a doomed love affair between novelist James Gillespie and a fiery idealistic journalist, Inès. Critics hailed the novel, which drew inevitable comparisons to Graham Greene
, Joseph Conrad
and John le Carré
's African novel, The Constant Gardener
. It was nominated for the Whitbread Award
in 1998.
The Catastrophist is a bleak book about the impossibility of love and of political peace in certain circumstances. The central character, James, (who changes his name from the Irish 'Seamus' to the Anglo form when he moves to London) follows Inès to the Congo as the Belgian colons are preparing to leave and the Communist sympathiser Lumumba is about to be killed by a rival "tribe" vying for control (with clandestine US support). James writes some pieces for the Observer in London as the political situation gets much worse, and he becomes more involved because Inès herself is heavily engagé, reporting for the Italian Communist Party newspaper.
Their sexual relationship is handled with great frankness, and their love appears very real, but she moves away from him, into the cause, and takes a young African supporter of Lumumba as a lover. She asks James to help them escape as their lives become threatened by a dangerous CIA man and the black tribal group he supports. Despite his own bitterness about losing her, James refuses to tell the American and his African co-conspirators where Inès and her lover are hiding. He is jailed and badly beaten, but eventually the CIA man believes his story that he does not know where Inès is hiding, and lets him go. Inès consoles him with one final sexual act before escaping with her African lover.
The sub-text is about James' impossible task in holding a woman who throws herself into a cause that the detached novelist cannot join. There is considerable poignancy in the scenes where he realises that she has gone for good, and no longer loves him.
Bennett's fourth novel, Havoc, in its Third Year, was published in 2004. It is a dark tale of Puritan fanaticism, set in a town in northern England in the 1630s, in the decade before Cromwell and his Roundheads took over the kingdom. Havoc was also well-received in the press.
Bennett was an uncredited co-author of Stolen Years, the prison memoir of Paul Hill, one of the Guildford Four
who were wrongfully convicted in 1975 for the Guildford and Woolwich pub bombings
the previous year. Bennett has also written several acclaimed screenplays for film and television, among them The Hamburg Cell and the controversial Rebel Heart. He contributes regularly to the British and Irish press.
In 2006, Bennett's new novel Zugzwang, was published week-by-week in the British Sunday newspaper The Observer
. The novel was written in weekly installments with new chapters being submitted to the newspaper close to publication date. Each chapter was accompanied by illustrations created by British artist Marc Quinn
.
Ronan Bennett lives in London
with his family. His partner is Georgina Henry, editor of guardian.co.uk
.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
novelist and screenwriter. He was raised in a devout Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
family headed by William H. and Geraldine Bennett at 420 Merville Garden Village
Merville Garden Village
Merville Garden Village is a housing estate located at Shore Road, Whitehouse, Newtownabbey, County Antrim, Northern Ireland created by structural and landscape architect Edward Prentice Mawson. It was completed in 1949.-Historical background:...
in the Whitehouse area of Newtownabbey
Newtownabbey
Newtownabbey is a large town north of Belfast in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Sometimes considered to be a suburb of Belfast, it is separated from the rest of the city by Cavehill and Fortwilliam golf course...
, Northern Ireland. Since its development in the late-1940s, Merville has always been proud of its mixed Roman Catholic/Protestant make up. Bennett attended the Christian Brothers Grammar School in West Belfast (generally known as St Mary's CBGS).
Early years
In 1974 while at school Bennett was convicted of murdering Inspector William Elliott, a 49 year-old police officer in the Royal Ulster ConstabularyRoyal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...
during an Official IRA
Official IRA
The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA is an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to create a "32-county workers' republic" in Ireland. It emerged from a split in the Irish Republican Army in December 1969, shortly after the beginning of "The Troubles"...
bank robbery at the Ulster Bank in The Diamond shopping area at Rathcoole
Rathcoole
Rathcoole may refer to:* Rathcoole, Dublin, a village in south Dublin, Republic of Ireland* Rathcoole , a large housing estate in Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland, UK* Rathcoole Aerodrome Co. Cork, Republic of Ireland...
, close to his Merville Garden Village home, on 6 September 1974. His conviction was overturned on appeal in 1975 and Bennett was released from Long Kesh prison near Lisburn, Co. Antrim. Later Bennett apparently displayed a sympathy towards the Irish National Liberation Army
Irish National Liberation Army
The Irish National Liberation Army or INLA is an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group that was formed on 8 December 1974. Its goal is to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a socialist united Ireland....
(INLA), which made its name after it killed Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
's Northern Ireland advisor Airey Neave
Airey Neave
Airey Middleton Sheffield Neave DSO, OBE, MC was a British soldier, barrister and politician.During World War II, Neave was one of the few servicemen to escape from the German prisoner-of-war camp Oflag IV-C at Colditz Castle...
in 1979.
Bennett then moved to London. In 1978 he was arrested for conspiracy to cause explosions and spent 16 months in prison on remand. Bennett conducted his own defence, and he and his co-defendants were acquitted in 1979. He studied history at King's College London
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
receiving a first class honours degree, and later completed his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
at the college in 1987.
Author
Bennett has published five novels and two non-fiction works. It was his third novel The Catastrophist that brought him into the public eye. This novel was set in the Belgian CongoBelgian Congo
The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...
just before independence, with the rise and fall of Patrice Lumumba
Patrice Lumumba
Patrice Émery Lumumba was a Congolese independence leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from Belgium in June 1960. Only ten weeks later, Lumumba's government was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis...
as political backdrop, The Catastrophist is the story of a doomed love affair between novelist James Gillespie and a fiery idealistic journalist, Inès. Critics hailed the novel, which drew inevitable comparisons to Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
, Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
and John le Carré
John le Carré
David John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...
's African novel, The Constant Gardener
The Constant Gardener
The Constant Gardener is a 2001 novel by John le Carré. It tells the story of Justin Quayle, a British diplomat whose activist wife is murdered...
. It was nominated for the Whitbread Award
1998 Whitbread Awards
-Children's Book:Winner:*David Almond, SkelligShortlist:*Robert Swindells, Abomination*J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets*James Riordan, Sweet Clarinet-First Novel:Winner:*Giles Foden, The Last King of Scotland...
in 1998.
The Catastrophist is a bleak book about the impossibility of love and of political peace in certain circumstances. The central character, James, (who changes his name from the Irish 'Seamus' to the Anglo form when he moves to London) follows Inès to the Congo as the Belgian colons are preparing to leave and the Communist sympathiser Lumumba is about to be killed by a rival "tribe" vying for control (with clandestine US support). James writes some pieces for the Observer in London as the political situation gets much worse, and he becomes more involved because Inès herself is heavily engagé, reporting for the Italian Communist Party newspaper.
Their sexual relationship is handled with great frankness, and their love appears very real, but she moves away from him, into the cause, and takes a young African supporter of Lumumba as a lover. She asks James to help them escape as their lives become threatened by a dangerous CIA man and the black tribal group he supports. Despite his own bitterness about losing her, James refuses to tell the American and his African co-conspirators where Inès and her lover are hiding. He is jailed and badly beaten, but eventually the CIA man believes his story that he does not know where Inès is hiding, and lets him go. Inès consoles him with one final sexual act before escaping with her African lover.
The sub-text is about James' impossible task in holding a woman who throws herself into a cause that the detached novelist cannot join. There is considerable poignancy in the scenes where he realises that she has gone for good, and no longer loves him.
Bennett's fourth novel, Havoc, in its Third Year, was published in 2004. It is a dark tale of Puritan fanaticism, set in a town in northern England in the 1630s, in the decade before Cromwell and his Roundheads took over the kingdom. Havoc was also well-received in the press.
Bennett was an uncredited co-author of Stolen Years, the prison memoir of Paul Hill, one of the Guildford Four
Guildford Four
The Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven were two sets of people whose convictions in English courts for the Guildford pub bombings in the 1970s were eventually quashed...
who were wrongfully convicted in 1975 for the Guildford and Woolwich pub bombings
Guildford pub bombing
The Guildford pub bombings occurred on 5 October 1974. The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated two 6-pound gelignite bombs at two pubs in Guildford, England. The pubs were targeted because they were popular with British Army personnel...
the previous year. Bennett has also written several acclaimed screenplays for film and television, among them The Hamburg Cell and the controversial Rebel Heart. He contributes regularly to the British and Irish press.
In 2006, Bennett's new novel Zugzwang, was published week-by-week in the British Sunday newspaper The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
. The novel was written in weekly installments with new chapters being submitted to the newspaper close to publication date. Each chapter was accompanied by illustrations created by British artist Marc Quinn
Marc Quinn
Marc Quinn is a British artist and part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs . He is known for Alison Lapper Pregnant , Self , and Garden .He is one of the Young British...
.
Ronan Bennett lives in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
with his family. His partner is Georgina Henry, editor of guardian.co.uk
Guardian.co.uk
guardian.co.uk, formerly known as Guardian Unlimited, is a British website owned by the Guardian Media Group. Georgina Henry is the editor...
.
External links
- 1999 interview with Salon magazine
- Zugzwang on The Observer website
- Bloomsbury author information on Bennett