Author Colin Barrett to Read at UMass Amherst Visiting Writers Series

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AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA for Poets and Writers presents a reading by writer Colin Barrett on Thursday, March 29 at 8 p.m. in Memorial Hall.

Barrett’s debut collection of short stories, Young Skins, was published in 2013 by the independent Irish publisher Stinging Fly Press. It was subsequently picked up by Jonathan Cape in the U.K. and Black Cat Editions, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, in the U.S. It received three major literary prizes in 2014, including The Guardian First Book Award, The Frank O’Connor International Short Story prize and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. It has so far been translated into six languages, with Japanese and Chinese editions forthcoming in 2018.

In 2015, Barrett was one of the selected honorees of the 5 under 35 National Book Awards in the U.S. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta Magazine, The New Statesman and other literary journals. According to author and MFA professor Sabina Murray, “Colin Barrett’s edgy, lyrical fiction has him a writer to watch. Chronicling the gritty margins of contemporary Ireland, his stories are compelling, structurally inventive, and lean. He is increasingly becoming one of the most important voices in contemporary fiction.”

Celebrating its 54th year, the nationally renowned Visiting Writers Series at UMass Amherst presents emerging and established writers of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. The series is sponsored by the MFA for Poets and Writers and the Juniper Initiative, and made possible by support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the UMass Arts Council and the English department. The reading is free and open to the public.