Bennett, Ronan 1956–

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Bennett, Ronan 1956–

PERSONAL: Born January 14, 1956, in Belfast, Northern Ireland; son of Eithne Magee Bennett. Education: King's College, Cambridge, B.A. (with first class honors), 1983, Ph.D., 1988. Politics: "Socialist and Irish nationalist."

ADDRESSES: Home—London, England. Agent—Rachel Calder (books) and Penny Tackaberry (screenplays), Tessa Sayle Agency, 11 Jubilee Pl., London SW3 3TE, England.

CAREER: Author. Institute of Historical Research, London, England, research fellow, 1986–87.

AWARDS, HONORS: Whitbread Award shortlist, 1998, for The Catastrophist; Hughes and Hughes/Sunday Independent Irish Novel of the Year Award, 2005, for Havoc, in Its Third Year.

WRITINGS:

(With Paul Hill) Stolen Years, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1990.

The Second Prison (novel), Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1991.

Overthrown by Strangers (novel), Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1992.

Double Jeopardy: The Retrial of the Guildford Four, Penguin (New York, NY), 1993.

The Catastrophist (novel), Headline Review (London, England), 1998, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1999.

Havoc, in Its Third Year (novel), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2004.

Zugzwang (novel), Bloomsbury (London, England), 2006.

SCREENPLAYS AND RADIO SCRIPTS

Love Lies Bleeding, British Broadcasting Corp., 1993.

A Further Gesture, 1996.

Face, 1997.

Lucky Break, 2001.

The Hamburg Cell, 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: In his third novel, The Catastrophist, Ronan Bennett sets a fictional love story in an all-too-real historical setting: the Belgian Congo of 1960, a time of massive political and social upheaval. The story is told through the eyes of an Irish journalist-turned-novelist, James Gillespie. He falls in love with the Italian reporter Ines Sabiani, a Communist sympathizer covering Patrice Lumumba's bid for the independence of Belgian Congo.

A catastrophist, as Ines describes it, is one for whom "nothing can be fixed." She believes "all problems can be solved by the doctrines of Karl Marx and has committed herself—and her journalism—to the struggle for African freedom," as an Economist reviewer put it. For Gillespie, the picture is not so clear. He is older, more experienced in the vagaries of global politics, a man who "knows what he is against: tyranny, corruption and cruelty. But he is not for anything," continued the Economist reviewer. "At first you think that [Gillespie's] attraction to Ines is merely a device to draw him into the heart of the Congo," remarked New York Times critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, who added: "In fact Mr. Bennett … does an effortless job of sketching the complicated [politics] there. Through Ines, Gillespie meets cynical journalists, Belgian settlers opposed to the independence movement and assorted other memorable natives and colonials." Among them is a third element in the drama: Stipe, a murderous CIA agent. As the Economist reviewer explained: "In some beautifully controlled, tense scenes, reminiscent of Graham Greene's bad men, Stipe is portrayed as thoughtful, even sensitive and likeable and a loyal friend to Gillespie." Emilie Griffin, reviewing The Catastrophist for America, likewise compared Bennett to Greene, noting an important difference. Unlike Greene, Bennett "isn't preoccupied with sin or faith."

To New York Times Book Review writer Rand Richards Cooper, The Catastrophist "aspires to be a savvy political novel a la V.S. Naipaul or Graham Greene." To do this, the author employs a good deal of schematic plotting, a device Cooper compares to "making the characters feel tailored to fit." Cooper viewed the narrator's ambiguity as a sign that Bennett's book "stumbles on its own ambition to be all things at once: romance, political thriller, historical chronicle and novel of ideas." On the other hand, a critic for Publishers Weekly saw the same qualities positively, recommending The Catastrophist for readers "seeking a well-made hybrid in Greene's mode—built of irony and commitment, political theory and garish violence, erotic charge and historical fact." "As well as the Machiavellian workings of cold-war power," remarked African Business contributor Jessie Banfield, the novel "exposes a spectrum of white attitude to black politics, from the clear-cut cases of Belgian racist violence, to Gillespie's milder tone,… to the not-unproblematic egalitarianism of Ines. Gillespie is unable to view blacks as anything except a mob, a threatening force, not a political grouping with a rational ideology of freedom." According to Alice Joyce in Booklist, "Bennett's literary tour de force sweeps readers along, imprinting images that remain vivid long after the book's final pages have been pondered."

Bennett followed The Catastrophist with the historical novel Havoc, in Its Third Year. Although set in the early seventeenth century, the story has relevance in the modern-day clash of religions. John Brigge was raised in a Catholic family, but with the rise of the Puritans there is much persecution of Catholics in England. Brigge hides his true religious beliefs to conform to his country's current religious and political atmosphere, becoming the successful governor and coroner of his town as a result. His character comes into question, however, when a Catholic woman is accused of murdering her child, and Brigge, impressed by the woman's faith and courage, defends her right to a fair trial. A Kirkus Reviews contributor believed that the story would have worked "better as history, falling rather flat as fiction," but a Publishers Weekly critic considered it a story "marvelously told" that is "one of the more rewarding historical novels to come along in some time."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

African Business, September, 1998, Jessie Banfield, review of The Catastrophist, p. 41.

America, November 6, 1999, Emilie Griffin, "A Book-bag for Fall: A Roundup of the Season's New Offerings," p. 8.

Booklist, August, 1999, Alice Joyce, review of The Catastrophist, p. 2020.

Bookseller, March 4, 2005, "Havoc Takes Hold in Ireland," p. 8.

British Journal of Criminology, autumn, 1994, Steven Greer, review of Double Jeopardy: The Retrial of the Guildford Four, pp. 512-513.

Daily Telegraph (London, England), July 18, 1998, Edward Smith, review of The Catastrophist; September 15, 2004, "Barbarism Revisited," review of Havoc, in Its Third Year.

Economist, September 12, 1998, review of The Catastrophist, p. S16.

Guardian (London, England), July 4, 1998, Gile Foden, review of The Catastrophist.

Independent (London, England), April 16, 1999, Emma Hagestadt, review of The Catastrophist.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2004, review of Havoc, in Its Third Year, p. 700.

Library Journal, June 1, 1999, Barbara Hoffert, review of The Catastrophist, p. 170; August, 2004, Amy Ford, review of Havoc, in Its Third Year, p. 63.

New Statesman, August 28, 1998, Sousa Jamba, review of The Catastrophist, p. 45.

New York Times, September 13, 1999, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "Love amid Congo Turbulence," review of The Catastrophist.

New York Times Book Review, October 3, 1999, Rand Richards Cooper, "Croquet among the Ruins," review of The Catastrophist. p. 34.

Observer (London, England), December 3, 2000, Ronan Bennett, "Why This Witch-Hunt Won't Stop Me Writing on Ireland"; September 5, 2004, Paul Taylor, "A Good Man in a Time of Terror," review of Havoc, in Its Third Year.

Publishers Weekly, July 19, 1999, review of The Catastrophist, p. 179; August 2, 2004, review of Havoc, in Its Third Year, p. 49.

San Francisco Chronicle, September 28, 2004, David Kipen, "In Period Prose Lies a Powerful Allegory for Our Paranoid Times," review of Havoc, in Its Third Year.

Times Literary Supplement, October 7, 1998, Michael Kerrigan, review of The Catastrophist.

Washington Post, September 10, 2004, Carolyn See, "As the World Turns," review of Havoc, in Its Third Year, p. C4.