Adriana Casserly announced as latest winner of UCD Maeve Binchy Travel Award
The School of English, Drama and Film is delighted to announce this year’s winner of the annual Maeve Binchy UCD Travel Award: Adriana Casserly.
This award, sponsored by the Binchy/Snell family, commemorates Maeve Binchy, her love of travel and her world-celebrated creative writing. The Award, worth €4,000, is open to a UCD humanities student (undergraduate or postgraduate) and was inaugurated in 2014. Previous winners are Henrietta McKervey, John McHugh, Aaron O’Farrell, Ryan Murphy, Rosa Jones, Gráinne Daly, Sree Sen and Declan Toohey.
Adriana recently graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from UCD. She is a former staff editor at the New York Times and holds a BA in Communications and Media Studies from Fordham University. The award will facilitate research towards an intergenerational family saga, a book which will explore many aspects of Sicilian history and culture, including the fuitina tradition in which many girls and young women were forced to marry their rapists, and which will examine the phenomenon of inherited trauma.
On her winning of the award, Adriana has commented: ‘It is truly an honour to be this year’s recipient of the Maeve Binchy Travel Award. This narrative is one that is very close to my heart and this funding will be essential for completing my work. More importantly, to have the confidence and trust of Gordon Snell and the judging panel is both energising and encouraging. I am endlessly grateful to Mr. Snell and the panel — grazie mille!’
Congratulating this year’s winner, Professor Margaret Kelleher, Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at UCD and chair of the selection committee, said: ‘We are delighted to celebrate the ninth year of this award, generously supported by Maeve’s husband Gordon Snell, on behalf of her family, to mark her vital creative legacy. Adriana is a most deserving winner of the award and the judges were deeply impressed by her exceptional talents as a writer and her deeply compelling and significant project.’