Booker winners protest funding cut to Irish Writers' Centre

BY ALISON FLOOD, GUARDIAN.CO.UK

The Booker prize-winning trio of John Banville, Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright along with an army of the biggest names in Irish literature are protesting the termination of funding to the Irish Writers' Centre, a hub for Dublin's literary community which hosts regular readings from the likes of Seamus Heaney and Colm Tóibín.

The authors have put their names to a petition calling for the Irish Arts Council's decision to cut the Centre's €200,000 funding to be reversed, and for support to be "reinstated urgently". Other signatories include Sebastian Barry, fresh from winning this week's Costa prize, John Boyne, Ciarán Carson, Maeve Binchy, Paul Muldoon and Joseph O'Connor, as well as a host of international supporters, from Richard Ford to Will Self and the Forward prize-winning poet Sean O'Brien. >>MORE