Roddy Doyle on writing, fiction, and writing fiction during COVID

We’re two years into the pandemic and it’s hard to quantify all that’s changed in our lives, our relationships, and in the world.

But some writers are attempting to do just that.

Irish writer, Roddy Doyle has a new collection of stories written almost entirely during the pandemic. “Life Without Children” is a portrait of loneliness and loss during strange and uncertain times. 

Daphne Merkin from The New York Times writes:

All the stories in “Life Without Children” have a quality of suspended animation, as though the music has suddenly stopped and the characters are left, each alone, on the dance floor.

We speak with Doyle about the limitations–and opportunities–in creating art during catastrophe.

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