Marian keyes born

Author

Born in September, 1963, in Limerick, Ireland; daughter of Ted and Mary (Cotter) Keyes; married Tony Baines (a computer analyst), December 29, 1995. Education: University College, Dublin, Ireland, BCL.

Addresses:Contact—c/o J. Lloyd, Curtis Brown, 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4SP United Kingdom. Office—c/o Penguin Publicity, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL United Kingdom.

Career

Worked as a waitress, London, England, beginning c. 1986; worked as an accounts clerk, London, England, through 1996; began writing short stories, 1993; published first novel, Watermelon, 1995; full-time writer, 1996—.

Awards: Irish Tatler Literary Award, 2001; Irish World Literary Award, 2002.

Sidelights

Popular "chick lit" author Marian Keyes is the writer of novels targeted at a female audience. Drawing on her own life's difficulties, she infuses her books with both humor and darker real-life situations such as drug addiction, depression, and miscarriages, but always writes a happy ending. Nearly all of her works are best sellers and most were translated into 30 languages. Keyes' books are more popular with readers than critics, selling more than nine million copies by 2005. As a result of her success, she has become one of the wealthiest women in the British isles.

Born in Ireland in 1963, Keyes was raised in various cities in that country, including Cavan, Cork, Galway, and the Dublin suburb of Monkstown. Her family led a middle-class existence, and Keyes and her four younger siblings were raised in a stable, loving home. Despite her positive family situation, Keyes later stated that she felt insecure by the time she was a toddler and believed that she did not belong from an early age. Although she was an academic achiever at convent schools, Keyes was not secure at all in social situations and relationships, especially with men. By the time she was 14 years old, Keyes had begun drinking.

Keyes continued to do well as a student at University C

Irish writer

Marian Keyes (born 10 September 1963) is an Irish author and radio presenter. She is principally known for her popular fiction.

Keyes became known for her novels Watermelon, Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married, Rachel's Holiday, Last Chance Saloon, Anybody Out There, and This Charming Man, which, although written in a light and humorous style, cover themes including alcoholism, depression, addiction, cancer, bereavement, and domestic violence. More than 35 million copies of her novels have been sold, and her works have been translated into 33 languages. Her writing has won both the Irish Popular Fiction Book and the Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year, each on one occasion, at the Irish Book Awards.

Biography

Keyes comes from a large family, with many siblings. She was born in Limerick and raised in Cork, Galway, and in Monkstown, County Dublin. She graduated from University College Dublin with a law degree, and after completing her studies, she took an administrative job before moving to London in 1986. During this period she became an alcoholic and was affected by clinical depression, culminating in a suicide attempt and subsequent rehabilitation in 1995 at the Rutland Centre in Dublin. In an article for The Daily Telegraph, Keyes details how her struggles with anxiety, depression, and alcoholism began at an early age. Keyes appeared on BBC's Imagine, aired in February 2022, explaining to Alan Yentob how she was distracted from her resolved end-of-life attempt by an episode of Come Dine With Me; husband and assistant Tony defused the drama by saying, "let's see how you feel when we've finished watching it," and so began her slow recovery from depression.

Keyes began writing short stories while suffering from alcoholism. After her treatment at the Rutland Centre she returned to her job in London and submitted her short stories to P

When she was a student of English at Trinity College in the early noughties, Irish author Louise O’Neill remembers one particular lecture during which the portrayal of women in literature was being discussed. When the lecturer mentioned Marian Keyes, O’Neill recalls how many of her classmates shared a knowing look in recognition of Keyes’s importance, alongside Jane Austen and others, as a social commentator. In her thirteen novels to date, Marian Keyes has unflinchingly probed societal and human suffering but has always managed to capture some redemptive moment, something to remind her many millions of readers of the joy that life can offer.

For Marian Keyes herself, the act of writing is one of life’s greatest joys. She has stated that writing is the “most authentic way I can be,” and, undoubtedly, authenticity is a defining feature of her books. The potential of hope that is intrinsic to Keyes’s writing is perhaps informed by her instinctive belief in humanity and the power of a happy ending. She has said that she “would rather never be published again than write a downbeat ending,” and she has demonstrated over and over again, in her writing and in her life, that even in the darkest times, there is always the possibility of light at the end of the tunnel.

Marian Keyes was born in Limerick and grew up in Cavan, Cork, Galway and Dublin. After studying law at university, she joined the many other young Irish people who emigrated to London in the 1980s. With no grand plan to become a writer, she spent her twenties working first as a waitress and later in an accounts office. This was a difficult period for Marian, and she has spoken openly about her struggles with depression and alcoholism during that time. What ultimately inspired her to write was reading a short story in a magazine and thinking to herself: “I could do that.” In 1993, aged thirty, Marian Keyes sent her first story to Poolbeg Press. That event would change the course of her life.