Sean Hewitt was born in 1990. He is the author of the poetry collection Tongues of Fire, which received the Laurel Prize and was shortlisted for many awards, including the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. His memoir, All Down Darkness Wide, was shortlisted for Biography of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards and for the Foyles Non-Fiction Book of the Year, and longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Polari Book Prize. Hewitt lectures at Trinity College Dublin, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2022, he was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature.
He's an exquisitely calm and insightful lyric poet, reverential in nature and gorgeously wise in the field of human drama -- Max Porter, Irish Times *Best Books of 2020* (praise for TONGUES OF FIRE) Seán Hewitt soars... This is an astonishingly assured debut delivered in a poetic voice that has eloquence, compassion, and serenity in equal measure... nothing seems beyond him * Sunday Times, praise for TONGUES OF FIRE * Very accomplished poems -- Sebastian Faulks, praise for TONGUES OF FIRE This is an extraordinary collection - heart-bruising, tender - one to cherish, and live by... beyond-gorgeous, beyond-glorious, blood-felt, feral, luminous -- Fiona Benson, praise for TONGUES OF FIRE I fell in love with these wild, heartsore, ecstatic poems. Tongues of Fire is a beautiful book and Seán Hewitt is an extraordinary writer -- Liz Berry, praise for TONGUES OF FIRE Seán Hewitt understands that poetic form is sacred and mysterious. In these godforsaken times his reverent procedures are food for the soul -- Michael Longley, praise TONGUES OF FIRE