Ireland, Perrin

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IRELAND, Perrin

PERSONAL: Married. Education: Bennington College, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES: Home—Cambridge, MA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Graywolf Press, 2402 University Ave., #203, Saint Paul, MN 55114.

CAREER: Corporation for Public Broadcasting, associate director; National Endowment for the Arts, senior program officer; filmmaker. Judge on film and television arts panels.

WRITINGS:

Ana Imagined (novel), Graywolf Press (Saint Paul, MN), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS: Perrin Ireland is the author of Ana Imagined, a novel that brings up the similarities between a writer who leads a comfortable life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a Muslim poet and mother who is scratching out an existence in battle-scarred Sarajevo. The writer, Anne, is watching the news one night and is struck by scenes of the war in Bosnia. She is particularly moved by the picture of a young woman in the midst of the chaos. Haunted by the image, Anne writes a novel chronicling the story of Ana, a wife, mother, and poet who strives to keep her life together in war-torn Sarajevo. Her son is diabetic, and food and medical supplies are in short supply. As Anne writes the novel, memories of being raped filter into her mind. She never reported the rape and has lived with the silent anguish of the event. As she discovers Ana's strength of character in her novel, Anne comes to a quiet strength in her own life.

In describing Ana Imagined, Library Journal contributor Lisa S. Nussbaum wrote, "Ireland's writing is lyrical, and her inclusion of passages from Anne Frank's diary make[s] this book even more vivid and horrifying." Booklist reviewer Bonnie Johnston remarked that "in the face of unreasoning violence, . . . it offers hope for the possibility of healing." And Michael Swindle, writing in the Denver Post, said that Ireland "has imagined Anne who has imagined Ana. Quite a debut."