Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin. He is the author of the novels Cowboys and Indians (short-listed for the Whitbread Prize), Desperadoes, The Salesman, Inishowen, Star of the Sea and Redemption Falls, as well as a number of bestselling works of non-fiction. He has also written film scripts and stage-plays including the award-winning Red Roses and Petrol. His novel Star of the Sea was an international bestseller, selling more than a million copies and being published in 38 languages. It won France’s Prix Millepages, Italy’s Premio Acerbi, the Irish Post Award for Fiction, the Neilsen Bookscan Golden Book Award, an American Library Association Award, the Hennessy / Sunday Tribune Hall of Fame Award, and the Prix Litteraire Zepter for European Novel of the Year.

He was voted ‘Irish Writer of the Decade’ by the readers of Hot Press magazine. In 2009 he was the Harman Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Baruch College, the City University of New York. His most recent novel Ghost Light was published in June 2010 to rave reviews internationally and spent nine weeks as a number one Irish besteller. It was chosen as Dublin’s One City One Book novel for 2011.

In December 2011, he received an honorary Doctorate in Literature from University College Dublin. He is the winner of the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature, 2012. His recent collection of short stories, Where Have You Been?, received rave reviews, became an Irish bestseller, and was chosen as a Book of the Year by Colm Tóibín (Irish Times), Peter Kemp (Sunday Times), Madeleine Keane (Sunday Independent), Nadine O'Regan (Sunday Business Post) Philip Womack (New Humanist magazine) and Richard Fitzpatrick (Irish Examiner). His stageplay My Cousin Rachel, based on Daphne du Maurier's classic novel, played at Dublin's Gate Theatre for fifteen-weeks in 2012/2013 and was acclaimed by the Sunday Independent as displaying 'a mastery of stagecraft'.

Joe is writer and lyricist for Heartbeat of Home, a dance spectacular being produced by John McColgan and Moya Doherty of Riverdance, with music by Brian Byrne and choreography by David Bolger. The show will debut in September 2013.

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