Hugo Hamilton (writer)

{{Infobox person

| name = Hugo Hamilton

| image = File:Hugo Hamilton 2018.jpg

| alt = Hugo Hamilton 2018

| caption = Hugo Hamilton (2018).

| birth_name =

| birth_date = 28 January 1953

| birth_place = Dublin

| death_date =

| death_place =

| spouse = Mary Rose Doorly[https://www.rte.ie/radio1/miriam-meets/programmes/2010/0702/347391-miriammeets/ Miriam Meets] www.rte.ie, July 2, 2010

| children =

| nationality = German/Irish

| alma_mater =

| other_names =

| known_for = Novel “The Pages”(Knopf 2022), Memoir “The Speckled people”

| occupation = Writer, Journalist

}}

Hugo P. Hamilton (born Johannes Ó hUrmoltaigh, 28 January 1953) is an Irish writer. Hamilton was born and raised in Dublin with an Irish father and a German mother. Hamilton has written plays, short stories, novels and memoirs.

Early life

Hamilton's mother was a German Roman Catholic who travelled to Ireland in 1949 on a pilgrimage, married an Irishman, and settled in the country. His father was a strict nationalist who insisted that his children should speak only German or Irish, but not English, a prohibition the young Hugo resisted inwardly. "The prohibition against English made me see that language as a challenge. Even as a child, I spoke to the walls in English and secretly rehearsed dialogue I heard outside," he wrote later.Hugo Hamilton, "Speaking to the walls in English", Powells.com, undated.{{cite web |url=http://www.powells.com/essays/hamilton.html |title=Powells.com from the Author - Hugo Hamilton |accessdate=2006-08-13 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060501181529/http://www.powells.com/essays/hamilton.html |archivedate=1 May 2006 |df=dmy-all }} As a consequence of this, he grew up with three languages – English, Irish and German – and a sense of never really belonging to any: "There were no other children like me, no ethnic groups that I could attach myself to".

Career

Hamilton became a journalist, and then a writer of short stories and novels. His first three novels were set in Central Europe. Following a year spent in Berlin on a DAAD cultural scholarship, he completed his memoir of childhood, The Speckled People (2003), which went on to achieve widespread international acclaim. Telling the story through the eyes of his childhood self, it evoked the struggle to make sense of a bizarre 'language war' in which the child perceives going out onto the English-speaking street outside as a daily migration. It "triumphantly avoids ... sentimental nostalgia and victim claims"，wrote Hermione Lee in The Guardian{{cite news |last1=Lee |first1=Hermione |authorlink1=Hermione Lee |title=A tale of two tongues |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jan/25/featuresreviews.guardianreview1 |accessdate=23 April 2019 |work=The Guardian |date=25 January 2003}} "The cumulative effect is to elevate an act of scrupulous remembering into a work of art," commented James Lasdun in The New York Times.{{cite news |last1=Lasdun |first1=James |authorlink1=James Lasdun |title=Lederhosen and Aran sweaters |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/08/books/lederhosen-and-aran-sweaters.html?pagewanted=print |accessdate=23 April 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=8 June 2003}} The story is picked up in the 2006 volume, The Sailor in the Wardrobe.

In May 2007, German publisher Luchterhand published Die redselige Insel (The Island of Talking), in which Hamilton retraced the journey Heinrich Böll made in Ireland that was to be the basis of his best-selling book Irisches Tagebuch (Irish Journal) in 1957.{{cite web | url=https://literaturkritik.de/id/11315 | title=Wozu in die Ferne schweifen? - Hugo Hamiltons "Die redselige Insel" macht nur wenig Lust auf Irland : Literaturkritik.de }} His fellow Irish writer Anne Enright has described Hamilton as a writer who "loves the spaces between things: his characters live, not just between cultures or between languages, but between the past and the future."{{cite news |last1=Enright |first1=Ann |authorlink1=Anne Enright |title=Hand in the Fire by Hugo Hamilton |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/apr/17/hand-fire-hugo-hamilton-review |accessdate=23 April 2019 |work=The Guardian |date=17 April 2010}} Hamilton's 2014 novel, Every Single Minute is a fictional account of a journey to Berlin which the author undertook with his fellow writer and memoirist, Nuala O Faolain, who was dying of cancer.{{cite news |last1=Wallace |first1=Arminta |title=A novel approach to Nuala |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/a-novel-approach-to-nuala-1.1700339 |accessdate=23 April 2019 |newspaper=The Irish Times |date=22 February 2014}}

Recognition

In 1992 he was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Sang impur, the French translation of The Speckled People, won the Prix Femina étranger in 2004 and Il cane che abbaiava alle onde, the Italian translation of the memoir, won the Premio Giuseppe Berto in 2004. He adapted his memoir The Speckled People for the stage at the Gate Theatre in Dublin in 2011. A new play entitled The Mariner, based on the story of his grandfather returning from the First World War, ran at the Gate Theatre in 2014.

Hamilton is a member of the Irish Arts Academy Aosdána and has been awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany) for his unique contribution to literature and understanding between Germany and Ireland.{{cite news |last1=Doyle |first1=Martin |title=Author Hugo Hamilton honoured by Germany |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/author-hugo-hamilton-honoured-by-germany-1.1963299 |accessdate=23 April 2019 |newspaper=The Irish Times |date=14 October 2014}}

Personal life

Hugo Hamilton lives in Dublin. He is married to Mary Rose Doorly, of Irish descent but born in Chester and educated in Ireland and Canada.{{Cite web |date=2010-07-08 |title=Miriam Meets.... Hugo Hamilton and Mary Rose Doorly |url=https://www.rte.ie/radio1/miriam-meets/programmes/2010/0702/347391-miriammeets/ |website=RTE |language=en}} They have three children, including a married son who lives in Berlin.{{Cite news |last=self |first=John |title=Hugo Hamilton: 'Irish people saw me as this weird child with a German mother' |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/hugo-hamilton-irish-people-saw-me-as-this-weird-child-with-a-german-mother-1.4614959 |date=2017-07-17 |access-date=2023-10-26 |newspaper=The Irish Times |language=en}}

Bibliography

=Novels=

Surrogate City (1990) {{ISBN|0-571-14432-2}}
The Last Shot (1991) {{ISBN|0-571-16391-2}}
The Love Test (1995) {{ISBN|0-571-16954-6}}
Headbanger (1996) {{ISBN|0-436-20405-3}}
Sad Bastard (1998) {{ISBN|0-436-20490-8}}
Disguise (2008) {{ISBN|0-00-719216-9}}
Hand in the Fire (2010) {{ISBN|0-007-32482-0}}
Every Single Minute (2014) {{ISBN|0-007-32486-3}}
Dublin Palms (2019) {{ISBN|0-008-12813-8}}
The Pages (2022) {{ISBN|978-0-593-32066-2}}

=Short stories=

Dublin Where the Palm Trees Grow (1996) {{ISBN|0-571-17693-3}}

=Memoirs=

The Speckled People (2003) {{ISBN|0-00-715663-4}}
The Sailor in the Wardrobe (2006) {{ISBN|0-00-719217-7}} [US Title: The Harbor Boys {{ISBN|0-06-078467-9}}]

Drama

The Speckled People (Methuen plays) Gate Theatre 2011
The Mariner (original stageplay) Gate Theatre 2014
Text from the novel 'Surrogate City' performed by David Moss in the opera by Heiner Goebbels entitled 'Surrogate Cities'(1994).

=Foreign-language versions=

Every Single Minute: Jede Einzelne Minute (Luchterhand 2014), Un Voyage à Paris (France, 2015)
Hand in the Fire: Der irische Freund, (Luchterhand, München, Germany 2011)
The Speckled People: Gescheckte Menschen (Germany, 2004); Sang impur (France, 2004); Il cane che abbaiava alle onde (Italy, 2004); El perro que ladraba a las olas (Spain, 2005); Sproetenkoppen (Netherlands, 2006); Gent mestissa (Andorra, 2007); Белязаните (Bulgaria, 2008), Люди з веснянками (Ukraine, 2012), Qeni që iu lehte valëve (Albania, 2012), Ar re vrizhellet (Brittany, 2020).
Headbanger: Der letzte Held von Dublin (Germany, 1999); Déjanté (France, 2006); Lo scoppiato (Italy, 2000)
The Sailor in the Wardrobe: Der Matrose im Schrank (Germany, 2006); Le marin de Dublin (France, 2006); De verdwijntruc (Netherlands, 2006); Il marinaio nell'armadio (Italy, 2007)
Sad Bastard: Ein schlechter Verlierer (Germany, 2001)
The Last Shot: Kriegsliebe (Germany, 1996); L'ultimo sparo (Italy, 2006); Het laatste schot (Netherlands, 2004)
Surrogate City: Berlin sous la Baltique (France, 1992)