Born in 1948 in Belfast, Ciaran Carson was Professor of Poetry and Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University Belfast. His translation of the Old Irish epic TAIN BO CUAILNGE (THE TAIN) was published by Penguin Classics in 2007. He published numerous novels, essays and collections of poetry that have been shortlisted for both the Irish Book Award for Literature and the Whitbread Poetry Award, and won the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Poetry.
Sadly Ciaran passed away on 6th October 2019, days before the publication of his final collection of poetry, STILL LIFE. In September 2026, Lilliput Press in Dublin will publish an astonishingly brilliant novel by Ciaran never before published, discovered posthumously, entitled X+Y=K. They will also reissue his iconic LAST NIGHT’S FUN.