Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s first book translated in Bulgarian “Literary Lunch and Other Stories" is a collection of twelve short stories, selected especially for the Bulgarian readers by the Irish writer and the book’s translator Dimitar Kamburov. The short stories collected in the book have been written over the past three decades.

Éilís Ní Dhuibhne was born in Dublin in 1954. She attended University College Dublin (UCD), where she studied English, then Folklore. In 1982 she was awarded a PhD from the National University of Ireland (NUI). The writer has worked in the Department of Irish Folklore in UCD and has been a curator at the National Library of Ireland for many years.

Her first collection of stories “Blood and Water” was published back in 1988 and since then she has written 25 books, including novels, collections of short stories, children’s book, plays and non-fiction works. She writes in both Irish and English.

Éilís Ní Dhuibhne has been awarded many literary prizes, including the Irish PEN award in 2015 for an outstanding contribution to Irish literature. In 2016 she received a Hennessy Literary Award for lifetime achievement. Éilís Ní Dhuibhne is the current ambassador of the Irish Writers' Centre, and President of the Folklore of Ireland Society (An Cumann le Béaloideas Éireann).

Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s books have been translated into German, Swedish, Czech, Italian, Japanese and Scottish Celtic, and some of her stories are available in many other languages, including French, Spanish, Slovenian, and Russian.

At the invitation of Ambassador of Ireland to Bulgaria H. E. Mr. Michael Forbes, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne held series of meetings with the Bulgarian audience in the cities of Sofia and Veliko Tarnovo days before Saint Patrick's Day (March 17).  Éilís Ní Dhuibhne has also been studying Bulgarian for three years in Trinity College Dublin.

BNR’s Assia Chaneva has met Éilís Ní Dhuibhne to talk about the writer’s links to Bulgaria, similarities she sees between Bulgarian and Irish people, about places in Bulgaria described in one of the stories in the book, about her love for Bulgaria and her huge interest in Bulgarian folklore.

On the occasion of Éilís Ní Dhuibhne's visit and the upcoming big celebration of St. Patrick’s Day Assia Chaneva interviewed Ambassador of Ireland H. E. Michael Forbes.

Listen to the interview with the Irish Ambassador to Sofia about the importance of Irish language in Republic of Ireland, the future of Europe, about Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, and of course about celebrating the most important Irish holiday in Bulgaria.

Editor: Alexander Markov