About Frank Delaney

Frank Delaney was born in Tipperary, Ireland, and after a fledgling career in banking became a broadcaster with RTE radio and television, the Irish state network, working on documentaries, music programmes and finally as a newsreader. In the mid 1970's he joined the Northern Ireland region of the BBC in Belfast as their current affairs man in Dublin and covered an intense period of the virtual war known as the Irish 'Troubles.' Later, after half a decade of reporting bombings, shootings kidnappings, sieges, he moved to London where, perhaps as an antidote, he began to work in arts broadcasting. Bookshelf, which he inaugurated for BBC Radio Four, became an award winner; on television he wrote films for Omnibus and other arts programmes and in the early 1980's hosted his own talk show, Frank Delaney, featuring an array of cultural and literary personalities.

Among hundreds of other broadcast contributions, Delaney also created Word of Mouth, BBC Radio Four's highly rated show about language, and wrote and presented The Celts, a six part television series, seen in forty countries and still in active video and DVD distribution. Between his BBC radio and television shows, and later his BSBSky/Fox Network international Cable TV show, The Book Show, he has taped interviews with hundreds if not thousands of writers, including most of the significant authors of our time.

Simple Courage is his sixth work of non-fiction; in 1979, his own first book, James Joyce's Odyssey was published to critical acclaim and best-seller status. Since then, Delaney has written five other books of non-fiction, nine novels, one novella, and a smattering of short stories published in both magazines and collections. He has edited compilations of essays and poetry, and written screenplays, among them, Goodbye Mr. Chips shown on ITV in Britain and Masterpiece Theater in the USA.

Ireland, A Novel, his most recent fiction, has been on the New York Times best sellers lists in both hardback and paperback and on many other bestsellers lists across the US and the UK.

Frank Delaney has three sons, Francis, Bryan, and Owen and a granddaughter, Poppy Beatrice. He lives in New York and Litchfield County, Connecticut, with his wife, Diane Meier.

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