The 2018 Man Booker Prize winner, Northern Ireland writer Anna Burns receives an Honorary Degree at Queen’s today. 

Anna, the first writer from Northern Ireland to scoop the prestigious prize, will be given a Doctor of Literature for distinction in the arts and literature. 

Her novel Milkman also won the 2019 Orwell Prize for political fiction, and the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.  She was also won the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize in 2018-2019 which recognises work promoting and encouraging peace and reconciliation in Ireland. 

Anna is also the author of the novels, No Bones and Little Constructions and the novella, Mostly Hero. In 2021, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 

Speaking about the Honorary Degree, Anna said: “I am delighted to be awarded this honour from an institution that has always offered local people access to education. Queen’s has produced many, many skilled writers and poets and continues to shape careers through elements such as the Seamus Heaney Centre.  

Writing is quite an insular profession, so it is lovely and much appreciated to be externally acknowledged for my work.” 

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