AROUND THE WORLD MONACO connect 2019 • 102 My first week in Monaco was a dizzying experience, not only be- cause of the singular, spectacular landscape and infrastructure, and the discombobulation of being financially supported to make art in Monaco(!), but also because of a rotten flu I’d picked up on some plane or other. My residency was to be four weeks—the month of March—and looming in my calendar on April 1st was: ‘Send MS to Bill’ (MS=finished manuscript; Bill=my agent). The flu would take me out for one whole week of my precious four! I was so sick that I slept with my apartment door open, so that I’d be discovered if I died in the night. Dramatic, but true. The note in my calendar suddenly looked like an April Fools’ joke. And yet … the miracle of a residency—im- portantly, one with almost no obligatory distractions—is that one can pull off two months’ worth of work in two weeks. I won’t detail the project I was working on at the Princess Grace Irish Library, as I’m superstitious about discussing yet-to-be-published work … but suffice it to say it was a tricky section from my next novel, which will appear in 2020. I had no idea if I could pull off what I was trying to pull off, but I knew that there would be no in-between out- come. It would either work or it wouldn’t. It’s hard to overstate how much was at stake for me in the work—the whole novel would ideally come into relief through this chapter—but the staff at the library and those associated with The Ireland Funds soon got a sense of that. I was working non-stop: all day at the library and all evening in my apartment in Beausoleil, on the French border above Monte Carlo. Some friends of the library would phone or email, inviting me to so- cial outings (some of which I did attend—the theatre, a Patrick’s Day evening, meals), sure that I was having a dreadful time, working so hard! On the contrary, I only work manically when things are going well. And I’m a very slow writer, so I have to put in all the hours. Towards the end of the month, I rewarded myself by taking the train to Èze to hike the Nietzsche trail, and hiring a road bike to cycle to Italy for a cappuccino! Géraldine Lance was the unique, wondrous Administrative As- sistant there with me every day, and her positive presence enriched my time immeasurably. She arranged a brilliant evening with refreshments and nibbles (the Monegasque mandarincello!), where I read from my then-forthcoming novel, Orchid & the Wasp (Oneworld, June 2018), alongside some poems. I also gave a talk about writing as discovery, which hopefully caused just the right amount of controversy! It was heartening to see so many literature-enthusiasts in the region. The library is an incredible resource and I could very happily have spent the month reading. It was a dangerous temptation. But, thankfully, I found a Beckett novel that was not characteristically brilliant just when I needed such encouragement (that even literary legends have off days)! Then I found an Edna O’Brien story collection that was so good I had to stop reading lest I never write another word. I hauled myself from the window-side reading chair to the writing desk chair, and got to work. What a privilege. With huge gratitude to The Ireland Funds. Caoilinn Hughes’ debut novel Orchid & the Wasp (Oneworld, 2018) was described by The New Yorker as 'a winning debut novel' and by the Times Literary Supplement as 'a remarkable, propulsive novel.' It was shortlisted for the 2018 Butler Literary Award. Her poetry collection Gathering Evidence won the Irish Times Shine/Strong Award and was shortlisted for four other prizes. She won The Moth International Short Story Prize 2018. Her BA and MA degrees are from Queen’s University of Belfast. Her PhD is from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. A fellow of the James Merrill House, the Bogliasco Foundation, Siena Art Institute, Faber and La Napoule Art Foundation, she has been awarded a Literature Bursary Award from the Arts Council of Ireland and The Ireland Funds Monaco Award. Her writing has appeared in Granta, Tin House, POETRY, The Stinging Fly, BBC Radio 3 and elsewhere. Awarded biannually, The Ireland Funds Monaco Residential Bursaries were established to enable writers born or living in Ireland to pursue a current project during a one-month residency at the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco. We are pleased to present these personal reflections writ- ten by authors Caoilinn Hughes and Declan Kiberd on their experiences in Monaco. The Ireland Funds Monaco Residential Bursaries Caoilinn Hughes