FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Irish novelist Colbert Kearney will give a reading on Wednesday, April 10 at 8 p.m. in Giffels Auditorium in Old Main on the University of Arkansas campus.

Kearney was born in Dublin. As the self-described "white sheep" of a family that loved stories, he fell in love with classical literature — Greek, Latin, English and Irish — which he studied at University College Dublin before getting a scholarship to King’s College Cambridge, where he wrote a thesis on Romanticism.

Since leaving Cambridge, Kearney has taught at University College Cork, where he is professor of Modern English. He has published widely on Anglo-Irish literature and has written books on Brendan Behan and Sean O’Casey. His principal interest is the influence which the older oral tradition has had on the English of Ireland. He has traveled extensively, teaching at the University of California at Irvine, Harvard, Colby College, the University of Padua and Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan.

In addition to his academic writing, Kearney has written short fiction and published a novel entitled "The Consequence." He is currently completing another novel to be called "Mockingbird Hill," which, he says, "adds to my pleasure in visiting a state whose state bird is the mockingbird."

In addition to giving a reading, Kearney will be meeting individually with students in the graduate program in fiction writing at the University of Arkansas. His reading, sponsored by the UA Programs in Creative Writing, is free and open to the public.

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