Cécile Tlili and Sarah Gilmartin in conversation with Aingeala Flannery

Join us on Friday 20 March, at 11am in Chapters Bookshop on Parnell Street, Dublin as the Irish Writers Centre joins up with the 26th Franco Irish Literary Festival, in association with Alliance Française and Ambassade de France en Irlande, and we invite award winning French novelist Cécile Tlili (Just a Little Dinner) and award winning Irish novelist Sarah Gilmartin (Dinner Party) to take part in a conversation with author, broadcaster and publisher, Aingeala Flannery (The Amusements) about food and its place in and around fiction, families and plot twists over dinner plates.

Cécile Tlili is a French writer. Her first novel Just A Little Dinner (2025) received three literary awards, including the Gisèle Halimi Prize. In this gripping closed-door narrative, the author questions the place of women in society, the expectations imposed on them, and their quest for emancipation and freedom. Celle qui fugue (2025) is her second novel. It explores romantic relationships, from passion to wear, and highlights two women and their desperate desire for freedom. Cécile Tlili also co-founded an alternative school for neurodivergent children in 2020.

Sarah Gilmartin’s short stories have been published in The Dublin Review, The Tangerine and The Stinging Fly. She won the Máirtín Crawford Short Story Award in 2020. Her novels Dinner Party: A Tragedy (2021), Service (2023) and the forthcoming Little Vanities (2026) are published by One. She was the 2025 Arts Council Writer-in-Residence at Dublin City University.

Aingeala Flannery is the author of The Amusements (Penguin), which won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2023 and the John McGahern Prize. Her short stories and essays have appeared in The Irish Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Paper Visual Art, and Winter Papers, and have been broadcast on RTÉ Radio One. She is deputy publisher at The Dublin Review and is the current Kildare Arts Writer-in-Residence at Maynooth University.

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