Professor Ruth Gilligan

• PhD English, University of Exeter (2014)
• MA Creative Writing, University of East Anglia (2011)
• MA English, Yale University (2010)
• BA English, Cambridge University (2009)

I published my debut novel Forget at the age of eighteen, becoming the youngest ever person to reach number one on the Irish bestsellers’ list. Since then I have published four more novels which have been translated into multiple languages and shortlisted for an array of international prizes.

My short stories have appeared in publications such as Wasifiri, The Istanbul Review, The Irish Pages, Ambit and Banshee. I also write regular literary reviews for The Guardian and The Irish Independent where I was a columnist for a number of years.

My debut play, We Love and Then We Drown – a love story set against the backdrop of the climate crisis – was first performed in London in January 2026 and will appear at the Camden Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe and Bloomsbury Festivals later this year.

For more information, please visit: www.ruthgilligan.com/

I teach across undergraduate and postgraduate Creative Writing modules, and have a particular interest in intertextuality, structure & form and writing for the stage.

I would be interested in receiving proposals for postgraduate projects on any themes related to my research (eg. structure & form; empathy & writing the ‘other’; intertextuality; storytelling for the climate crisis). Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with any queries!

Find out more - our PhD Creative Writing  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

My novels braid together multiple timelines and points of view to tell character-led stories set against the backdrop of particular moments in Irish history. My critical research, meanwhile, examines the formal strategies of other contemporary Irish novelists such as Colum McCann, Eimear McBride and Maggie O’Farrell.

I have long been interested in the concept of empathy and its relationship to narrative form; more recently this has evolved to consider how different modes of storytelling seek to engage with the climate emergency – which in turn led to me writing my first ever work for the stage.

Since joining the university, I have partnered with a number of national and international charities whose work focuses on literacy, storytelling and empathy. These include Narrative 4, Empathy Museum and the National Literacy Trust with whom the university launched a formal partnership in 2019. These collaborations served as the basis for an Impact Case Study in REF2021. Meanwhile, since 2023 I have been the Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Lead for the College of Arts & Law.