Emma Cooke was born in Portarlington, Co Laois, in 1934, christened Enid Blanc.
The Blancs, of Hugenot descent, are immortalised in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as ‘‘Blong’s best from Portarlinton’s Butchery.’’
Her short stories are collected as Female Forms (Dublin, Poolebeg Press, 1986). Her novels are A Single Sensation (Poolebeg Press, 1979); Eve’s Apple (Belfast, The Blackstaff Press, 1985); Wedlocked (Poolbeg Press, 1994); and The Book of Tricks (Galway, Wynkin de Worde, 2004).
She won a Francis MacManus Award for her short story An International Incident. Her stories have been published in a number of anthologies and have been read on the BBC.
She lives in Co Limerick.
Emma Cooke at Munster Literature Centre
Emma Cooke at The National Library of Ireland