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Boston College, 300 Hammond Street, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA

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In this seminar, Frank Shovlin will think about whether is it possible for a biographer to tell the truth. Which version of the facts ought we to use? And are there even such things as facts? In the case of John McGahern in particular, why write a biography at all, since he has left us an account of his life in All Will Be Well, his 2005 memoir? 

Frank Shovlin is a native of the west of Ireland and was educated at the universities of Galway and of Oxford. He is Professor of Irish Literature in English at the University of Liverpool and is the author of several books on varying aspects of twentieth-century Irish literature. His most recent publication was the critically acclaimed edition of The Letters of John McGahern (Faber, 2021). He is now writing McGahern's authorized biography and is M.H. Abrams Visiting Fellow at the National Humanities Center, North Carolina for 2024-2025.