Carlo Gébler

Carlo Gébler (born 21 August 1954) is an Irish writer, television director, and teacher. His publications include novels, short stories, plays, historical works and memoirs. He is a member of Aosdána.

Gébler was born in Dublin, the elder son of the Irish writers Ernest Gébler and Edna O'Brien, and was named Karl after Karl Marx.^[1] He moved with his parents to London in 1958.^[2] His parents separated in 1962.^[3] After the separation Carlo and his younger brother at first stayed with their father but later went to live with their mother. Carlo had a difficult relationship with his father, from whom he was later estranged for many years.^[4]

Gébler attended Bedales School.^[5] As a child, he had a "fraught relationship" with his father, who placed "repeated emphasis on the boy's stupidity".^[1] He graduated from the University of York, where he studied English. He later graduated from the National Film and Television School.^[6] In 2009 he was awarded a PhD by Queen's University Belfast.^[7]

Gébler directed his first film for television in 1979. He won the Best Regional Documentary RTS Award for his 1998 production Put to the Test.^[2]

Gébler's first novel, The Eleventh Summer, was published in 1985 and was succeeded by August in July in 1986 and Work and Play in 1987. In 1988 his first non-fiction book, Driving Through Cuba: An East-West Journey was published, followed by novels in 1990 and 1991.^[2] Gébler's subsequent works include plays and screenplays, libretti, children's books, short stories, novels and several memoirs.

Several of Gébler's novels are based on historical *** cases. Reviewing the 2011 novel, The Dead Eight, based on events that took place in rural Tipperary in 1940, Julian Evans described Gébler as an "overlooked novelist" with a "Swiftian understanding of the world's secret machinations".^[8]

In 2000 he published Father and I, a memoir of his relationship with his emotionally abusive father, from whom he was estranged for much of his life.^[4] His 2014 biography of his father, The Projectionist: The Story of Ernest Gébler is based on Ernest's diaries and notes for an autobiography, left unwritten on his death in 1998.^[9] The Times Literary Supplement's review of The Projectionist noted the author's "emotional empathy" and remarked that "this loving care gives the subject importance beyond the surface facts".^[10] Gébler's relationship with his father also figures largely in his 2015 memoir Confessions of a Catastrophist.^[11]

From 1991 to 1997 Gébler worked with prisoners at the Maze Prison as a creative writing tutor. From 1997 to 2015 he was writer in residence at HM Prison Maghaberry. He has described his prison teaching experience as "a time when, I assert, I learnt more than at any other time in my life".^[12]

Gébler teaches a course on "Writing for a Living" at Trinity College Dublin's Oscar Wilde Centre, where he is an Assistant Professor in Creative Writing.^[13] He has also taught at Queen's University Belfast, where he was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow in 2009.^[6]

Gébler has been a member of Aosdána since 1990.^[5]

Carlo Gébler lives in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, in Northern Ireland. He is married and has five children.^[5] His younger brother, Sasha Gébler, is an architect.^[14]

• —— (1985). The Eleventh Summer.
• —— (1986). August in July.
• —— (1987). Work and Play.
• —— (1990). Caught on a Train.
• —— (1991). Life of a Drum.
• —— (1994). The Cure.
• —— (1998). How to *** a Man.
• —— (2008). A Good Day for a Dog.
• —— (2011). The Dead Eight.
• —— (2017). The Innocent of Falkland Road.

• —— (2003). August '44.
• —— (2005). The Bull Raid.

• —— (1996). W9 and Other Lives.

• —— (2000). Father and I: A Memoir.
• —— (2008). My Father's Watch: The Story of a Child Prisoner in 70s Britain.
• —— (2015). Confessions of a Catastrophist.

• —— (1988). Driving Through Cuba: An East-West Journey.
• —— (1991). The Glass Curtain: Inside an Ulster Community.
• —— (1998). Frozen Out.
• —— (2005). The Siege of Derry.
• —— (2014). The Projectionist: The Story of Ernest Gébler.

• —— (2000). Dance of Death.
• —— (2002). 10 Rounds.
• —— (2007). Henry and Harriet: And Other Plays.

• —— (2019). I, Antigone.