Maurice Leitch

Maurice Leitch (born 5 July 1933) is an author born in Northern Ireland. Leitch's work includes novels, short stories, dramas, screenplays and radio and television documentaries. His first novel was The Liberty Lad, published in 1965. His second novel, Poor Lazarus was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1969, and Silver's City won the Whitbread Prize in 1981.

Leitch taught in primary schools in Antrim for several years before joining BBC Northern Ireland in 1960 as a producer/writer. In 1970, he moved to London to become a producer in the BBC's Radio drama department. From 1977 until 1989 he was editor of Radio Four's Book at Bedtime, until leaving in 1989 to write full-time. In the New Year Honours List, 31 December 1998, he was awarded an MBE for services to literature.

Maurice Henry Leitch was born in the village of Muckamore, County Antrim, to Jean, née Coid, and Andrew Leitch of Templepatrick, Antrim on 5 July 1933. He was educated at Methodist College Belfast, and Stranmillis Training College, Belfast. (Stranmillis, now Stranmillis University College, holds a distinctive place in Irish education, established after partition to offer Northern Ireland a non-denominational training college. Resistance from the Roman Catholic schools – and Catholic bishops – to accepting Stranmills-trained teachers subsequently defined the college as Protestant.) For a novelist whose characterful Protestant voice was to jostle with traditional Irish Catholic writing throughout his career, his Protestant background continues to provide a nearly unique perspective on a troubled Irish history, indeed, according to The Cambridge Companion to the Irish Novel, anticipating the Troubles by revealing the 'terminal decay, sullen hatred and sour futility in his region', notably in his first novel, The Liberty Lad.

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