Bernard MacLaverty

Bernard MacLaverty was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1942, and spent his childhood living with his parents, brother, great aunt, and grandparents. Many of MacLaverty’s stories deal with the political tensions of his childhood, as he was raised Catholic during the Troubles in Northern Ireland (a conflict between unionists loyal to the British-controlled government and nationalists who wanted Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic of Ireland). MacLaverty’s stories may also be informed by his father’s early death, as they often center around the harsh truths of loss and grief. A sign painter whose profession brought him in close contact with carcinogenic paints, MacLaverty’s father died when the author was only 12. MacLaverty began writing at a young age: he remembers receiving his first payment for a story in primary school, when a teacher gave him sixpence for an essay titled “A Rainy Day.” Nevertheless, MacLaverty did not excel academically and even failed his English A-level exams. He left school to spend 10 years as a medical lab technician before attending Queens University in Belfast to study English and teaching. While at Queens, MacLaverty wrote for student writing magazines and joined an influential writing club run by the British poet Phillip Hobsbaum. In 1967, he married Madeline McGuckin, and the couple had four children. By 1975, the Troubles were making Belfast increasingly violent, so the family moved to Scotland. MacLaverty became a full-time writer in 1981, after publishing his first novel, Lamb, in 1980. He went on to write four more novels, six short story collections, and two children’s books, in addition to numerous radio-plays, screenplays, teleplays, and libretti. The author currently resides in Glasgow, Scotland with his family. In 2021, at the age of 79, MacLaverty published a new collection of short stories titled Blank Pages.