I’m on my way to Lisbon – a city I’ve never visited – for the Embassy of Ireland lecture at the University of Lisbon, which takes place on Thursday, May 19.My lecture ,entitled “The Past Is a Foreign Country”, will consider the writing of fiction, with particular reference to historical fiction and to the excavation of a personal past. I’m also going to be reading from Prosperity Drive. It will be a bilingual reading as a short story from the collection, “The Gender of Cars”, has already been translated into Portuguese and featured in the anthology Contar um Conto (eds. Ana Raquel Fernandes and Mário Semião, 2014).
The Embassy of Ireland Lectures were launched by Ambassador James Brennan after his visit to the Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon, in May 2008, to address students enrolled in the then recently created curricular unit on Irish Literature and Culture.
mary morrissy 
Dear Mary, you’ll love Lisboa. It’s a fascinating city. Walking the streets one seems to hear Pessoa’s vouce and the tune if fados.
I’m following the launches of Prosperitu Drive which I sadly missed. Congratulation’s on much deserved appraisal. Looking foward to seeing you in Cork in July? Cristina
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