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Thomas Telford

Marian Keyes: From her battle with alcoholism to author of the year

Acclaimed Irish author Marian Keyes is set to appear on tonight's Late Late Show where she'll chat to Ryan about her extraordinary career to date.

Keyes' new book Again, Rachel hit bookshelves across Dublin yesterday and comes two years after her previous book, Grown Ups which was released in February 2020.

But who is the award-winning author Marian Keyes? Here's everything you need to know about her.

Marian Keyes was born on September 10, 1963, in Limerick and raised in Cork and Monkstown, is one of five children with siblings Niall, Caitriona, Rita-Anne and Tadhg who are all younger than Marian.

She graduated with a degree in law from University College Dublin before moving to London in 1986.

However, in London things started to turn. It was during this period that she suffered from alcoholism and clinical depression which resulted in her attempting to take her own life.

She returned to Dublin and attended the Rutland Centre for rehabilitation.

While suffering from depression, Keyes began to write short stories and on her return to London and submitted them to Poolbeg Press.

After reading the short story, Poolbeg Press contacted Keyes to ask her to write a full-length book which resulted in Keyes writing her first novel, Watermelon.

In 1995, Keyes met her future husband Tony Baines on his 30th birthday. They are still happily married and living in Dun Laoghaire.

Keyes has spoken previously about her sadness at never having had children.

She wrote on Twitter: "Myself and Himself have 3 teenagers in the backseat - Luka, Ema, Ema's boyfriend (MORE OF WHICH anon!!!) And I'm feeling unexpectedly sad about not having the paistí. Like my life is LOVELY but there's another life where we had nippers and today I'm sad I never met them."

In 2009, Keyes was announced as the winner of the Irish popular fiction book for This Charming Man at the Irish Book Awards.

This was the first of three awards picked up at the Irish Book Awards which culminated with Author of the Year at the 2021 edition.

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