Glenn Patterson

One of the foremost novelists to emerge from Northern Ireland, Glenn was born in Belfast in 1961 and studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of seven novels: ‘Burning Your Own’ (1988), winner of a Betty Trask Award and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, ‘Fat Lad’ (1992), ‘Black Night at Big Thunder Mountain’ (1995), ‘The International’ (1999), ‘Number 5’ (2003), ‘That Which Was’ (2004), and, most recently, ‘The Third Party’ (2007). A collection of his journalism, ‘Lapsed Protestant’, was published in 2006. He teaches Creative Writing at Queen’s University Belfast and edits the Ulster Tatler’s Literary Miscellany.

There possibly are things in the world more beneficial for the study and writing of literature than Mary Denvir’s lentil soup, but for the life of me I can’t imagine what they might be. I’m not sure when exactly Mary’s second-hand bookshop, Bookfinders, grew a café at the rear (then again these days I’m not always sure exactly how old I am), but from the moment I ventured past the Irish section, past the cabinet containing the signed first editions, and into its Super-Ser-warmth there was no competition so far as I was concerned. In an era of franchises and identikit coffee houses, Bookfinders Café is one of a kind.

A gallery on occasions, it is a regular venue for poetry readings as well as an ad-hoc information centre on literary events elsewhere in the city. It is also very conveniently directly opposite the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, where I teach Creative Writing. Actually before the Heaney Centre opened, relieving the pressure on space in the School of English, Bookfinders was more or less home to me and my Creative Writing colleagues. We still conduct many of our meetings there. And I still go there before most afternoon classes, to read, to sup soup and nourish mind and body.