Roddy Doyle

Bestselling author Roddy Doyle is acclaimed across the world. He was born in Dublin in 1958 and still lives there today. Much of his work is set in the city and is about the unexpected, and often challenging, lives of ordinary Irish people – but it appeals to readers all over the world. Roddy Doyle has won many prizes for his writing. These include the Booker Prize (for which he has also been shortlisted), and a BAFTA for Best Screenplay. He has also won the Irish Children’s Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the prestigious 2013 CILIP Carnegie Medal. His novel The Commitments was turned into a blockbuster film directed by Alan Parker and opened as an award-winning musical in Dublin and in London in 2013, directed by Jamie Lloyd.

Chris Judge is an illustrator, artist and children’s picture-book author based in Dublin, Ireland. His work is a mixture of illustration, painting and design, and his first picture book, The Lonely Beast (Andersen Press), won the 2011 Specsavers Irish Children’s Book of the Year. He illustrates the Danger is Everywhere series (Penguin) in collaboration with David O’Doherty, and illustrated Roddy Doyle’s 2014 children’s novel Brilliant.