Jennifer Johnston

Tributes paid to award-winning Irish author Jennifer Johnston

Beloved Irish author Jennifer Johnston has passed away at the age of 95 according to her family.

The award-winning writer was best known for her novel ‘How Many Miles to Babylon?’ published in 1974, though many of her other works received critical acclaim, including ‘The Captains and the Kings’ and ‘Shadows on her Skin’ which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1977. She won the Whitbread Book Award for The Old Jest in 1979, and a Lifetime Achievement award from the Irish Book Awards (2012).  The Old Jest, a novel about the Irish War of Independence, was later made into a film called The Dawning, starring Anthony Hopkins, produced by Sarah Lawson and directed by Robert Knights. best known for How Many Miles to Babylon, passed away at 95. The award-winning  novel is a complex tale of a friendship between two boys in Ireland, divided by class,rank and religion, who join the British Army  during World War I.

Born in Dublin in 1930, Johnston moved to the northern city of Derry during the 1970s. Her work was deeply involved with the intricacies of the Troubles conflict then plaguing her adopted hometown and she became a much-respected chronicler of the hardships facing her local community.

In 2012, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award as part of the An Post Irish Book Awards and was one of a handful of Irish novelists nominated for the inaugural position of Irish Laureate for Fiction in 2014.

Following her peaceful passing on Tuesday morning at a nursing home in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, President Michael D. Higgins led tributes to the author: “Throughout her many novels and plays, Jennifer Johnston provided a deep and meaningful examination of the nature and limitations of identity, family and personal connections throughout the tumultuous events of 20th Century Irish life,” he said.

“It is noteworthy that her work has always been championed by so many of her fellow writers, who have acknowledged her as one of the finest of Irish novelists. So many of them have recorded her as a strong influence on so much of their own work.”

Respected academic, author and critic Dermot Bolger also paid tribute to Johnston, telling RTÉ’s News at One: “We have lost one of the great modern writers of our times. I also will incredibly miss her wonderful personality, her generous laugh.

“I’d like to send my condolences to her children and her grandchildren, because Jennifer was a unique writer and a unique person as well.” ♦

This article was reposted with permission from The Irish Post.