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Dr. Seán Hewitt

Assistant Professor (English)
      
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Dr. Seán Hewitt

Assistant Professor (English)

 shewitt@tcd.ie

 


Seán Hewitt, FRSL, is a poet, novelist, memoirist and critic. His first collection of poetry, Tongues of Fire (Jonathan Cape, 2020), was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and won The Laurel Prize in 2021. His second collection of poems, Rapture's Road (Jonathan Cape, 2024), was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. All Down Darkness Wide (Jonathan Cape, 2022), a memoir, won The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2022, and 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World, a collaboration with the artist Luke Edward Hall, was published by Penguin, in 2023. His debut novel is Open, Heaven (2025). Seán's work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Seán also has an ongoing interest in the literature of the Irish Revival, ecopoetics, and literature and science. His monograph J.M. Synge: Nature, Politics, Modernism, was published by Oxford University Press in 2021, and he has written on figures such as W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Roger Casement, and Emily Lawless. Seán teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate levels, on the MPhil Creative Writing, and supervises candidates for the PhD in Literary Practice. Selected Publications Open, Heaven. Novel. Jonathan Cape (2025), Knopf (USA and Canada, 2025), Einaudi (Italy, 2025), Suhrkamp (Germany, 2025), Robert Laffont (France, 2025), De Arbeiderspers (Netherlands, 2025), Solumbokvennen (Norway, 2025), Gyldendal (Denmark, 2025), Literarna Basta (Slovak, 2026), Urano (Spain, 2025), Stereoma (Greece, 2025), Czechia (Paradox, 2026), Ukraine (Athena, 2026) Rapture's Road. Poetry. Jonathan Cape (2024), Knopf (USA, 2026) Three Hundred Thousand Kisses: Queer Love in the Ancient World, illustrated by Luke Edward Hall. Translation / Anthology. Penguin: Particular Books (2023), Clarkson Potter (USA, 2023), L'Ippocampo (Italy, 2024), HarperCollins Brazil (Brazil, 2024), Eulyoo (South Korea, 2025), Editions Ducasse (France, 2025), Promethus (Ukraine, 2026) All Down Darkness Wide. Memoir. Jonathan Cape (2022), Penguin Press (USA, 2022), Solum Bokvennen (Norway, 2022), De Arbeiderspers (Netherlands, 2023), Literarna Basta (Czechia, 2024), Urano (Spain, 2026) J.M. Synge: Nature, Politics, Modernism. Critical study. Oxford University Press (2021) Buile Suibhne. Poems. with illustrations by Amy Jeffs. Fine Press Poetry (2021) Tongues of Fire. Poems. Jonathan Cape (2020), Knopf (USA, 2026), Einaudi (Italy, 2026)
Details Date
Judge for David Cohen Lifetime Achievement Award 2025 2025
Judge for The Dylan Thomas Prize, 2024 January 2024 - July 2024
Peer reviewer, Liverpool University Press 01/01/2022
External assessor, University College Cork hiring committee August 2023
Judge for PEN Heaney Prize 2025
Advisory Board Member, Diversifying Irish Poetry: Poetry Critics of Colour in Ireland 2020
Mentor, Poetry Ireland Introductions 2021
Mentor, Irish Writers Centre / Dublin Book Festival Young Writer Delegates scheme 2022
Mentor, Diversifying Irish Poetry: Poetry Critics of Colour in Ireland 2021
Mentor, Ledbury Emerging Poetry Critics Scheme 2021
Peer Reviewer: Liverpool University Press Modern Language Association (MLA) Studi irlandesi: A Journal of Irish Studies English Studies The Parish Review ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 2020
Details Date From Date To
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature 12/07/2023 present
Seán Hewitt, Open, Heaven, Jonathan Cape, 2025, Book, PUBLISHED
Seán Hewitt, All Down Darkness Wide, London, Jonathan Cape, 2022, 1 - 240pp, Book, PUBLISHED
Seán Hewitt, Rapture's Road, London, Jonathan Cape, 2024, 1 - 80pp, Book, PUBLISHED
Seán Hewitt, J.M. Synge: Nature, Politics, Modernism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2021, 1-256pp, Book, PUBLISHED  URL
Seán Hewitt, Tongues of Fire, London, Jonathan Cape, 2020, 80pp, Book, PUBLISHED
Seán Hewitt, Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Skies of Couple-Colour", Victorian Poetry, 58, (3), 2021, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Seán Hewitt, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love in the Ancient World, London, Penguin: Particular Books, 2023, 1 - 208pp, Book, PUBLISHED
Seán Hewitt, Emily Lawless, Natural History, and the Possibilities of Enchantment, Irish University Review, 54, (2), 2024, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Queerness and Homosociality in, editor(s)Martin Dubois , Gerard Manley Hopkins in Context, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023, [Seán Hewitt], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Nineteenth Century Contexts, (2021), Seán Hewitt ; Anna Pilz, [eds.], Notes: [Special issue: "Ecologies of the Atlantic Archipelago"], Journal, PUBLISHED
  

Page 1 of 4
Introduction in, editor(s)n/a , The Persian Boy, London, 2024, [Seán Hewitt], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Introduction in, I Put a Spell on You, London, Vintage, 2025, [Sean Hewitt], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Introduction in, Some Poems of Roger Casement, Dublin, New Island Books, 2025, [Sean Hewitt], Book Chapter, IN_PRESS
Introduction in, The Waking of Willie Ryan, Dublin, 2026, [Seán Hewitt], Book Chapter, ACCEPTED

  


Award Date
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Literature July 2023
International Dylan Thomas Prize, shortlist 2025
Rooney Prize for Irish Literature 2020
The Laurel Prize 2021
Maurice J Bric Medal of Excellence (Irish Research Council) 2020
Spiegel Buchpreis (shortlist) 08.10.2025
Micheal Déon Prize, shortlist 2024
The Polari Book Prize, shortlist 2022
An Post Book Awards, Biography of the Year, shortlist 2022
RSL Ondaatje Prize, longlist 2023
John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, shortlist 2021
The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, shortlist 2020
Foyles Book of the Year, Non-Fiction, Shortlist 2022
My principal areas of research are in creative arts practice. Over the past five years, I have published six books, ranging from an academic monograph, memoir, poetry, translation and fiction. My works have been translated into over a dozen languages. In each of these, my focus is on the intersections of sexuality, gender, ecology and modes of spirituality and enchantment. I have written peer-reviewed articles on the literature of the Irish revival, modernism, and on contemporary poetics, and have an ongoing interest in the history of science, particularly natural history, and literature. These research interests have developed into a series of research-led modules at Trinity, and the supervision of PhD students in the areas of queer history, Irish studies, ecopoetics and the Irish novelistic tradition. I am the only practicing poet employed within the School of English, and have broader research interests in contemporary publishing and public engagement within the arts and to extending the scope and vision of the Trinity curriculum in the area of creative arts practice.