In an interview with The Independent, Burns recalled how “the soldiers at the refugee camp south of the border in the Republic of Ireland brought her more food than she had seen before…She couldn’t have been more upset when she was sent back to school.” In 1969, her family became one of the hundreds evacuated from Ardoyne as the violence intensified in the aftermath of the burning of Bombay Street. Like many of her generation, Burns’ formative years were defined by the developing conflict in Northern Ireland. Reading formed an integral part of her childhood and Burns describes hers as a ‘bookish family’. “I’d go over to the house so I had all that rowdiness, which was important, then I’d go back to my aunt’s for the quietness”. As was common among large families living in small homes known as ‘kitchen houses’, she lived with her unmarried aunt over the road. Anna Burns is an award-winning author best known for her third novel Milkman, which was awarded the Man Booker prize in 2018: this marked the first time the award had a Northern Irish recipient. Born in North Belfast in 1962, Burns’ writing reflects her upbringing during the early years of the Troubles and the lingering impact of the violence she experienced.īurns grew up as one of seven siblings in a working-class, Catholic family in Ardoyne.
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