Richard Pine

Richard Leslie Beswetherick Pine[1][2] (born 21 August 1949) is the author of critical works on the Irish playwright Brian Friel, the Anglo-Irish novelist Lawrence Durrell, and aspects of art music in Ireland. He worked for the Irish national broadcaster RTÉ Raidió Teilifís Éireann before moving to Greece in 2001 to found the Durrell School of Corfu,[3] which he directed until 2010. In 2012, to mark the centenary of the birth of Lawrence Durrell, Pine edited and introduced a previously unpublished novel by Durrell, Judith, set in 1940s Palestine.[4][5] From 2009 to 2020 he wrote a regular column on Greek affairs in The Irish Times and was also an obituarist for The Guardian. Lawrence Durrell described Pine's work as "the best unpacking of my literary baggage I have heard."[6]

Early life

Richard Pine was born in London, the only child of L. G. Pine and his wife Grace Violet, daughter of Albert Griffin.[7] After attending Westminster School (1962–66), he began higher education in Ireland taking a BA in 1971 at Trinity College, Dublin (TCD) and a H.Dip.Ed in 1972, being President and gold medalist of the University Philosophical Society and winner of the Vice-Chancellor's Prize for English.

Career in Ireland

After university, Pine remained in Ireland, joining Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) as Concerts Manager, responsible (among other ensembles) for the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra.[8] In 1983, he became a senior editor in RTÉ's Public Affairs Division; a post he held for 16 years. He also wrote and presented many programmes for RTÉ Radio, including a 15-part documentary, "Music, Place and People: the Irish Experience 1740–1940" on RTÉ's classical music channel, RTÉ lyric fm.

From 1988 to 1990, Pine was Secretary of the Irish Writers' Union and a music critic for The Irish Times.[9] From 1990 to 1994, he was co-editor of the New York-published Irish Literary Supplement.

Between 1978 and 1988, Pine was a consultant to the Council of Europe on cultural development programmes. A seminal essay on cultural democracy was published by the Finnish Committee of UNESCO in 1982.

Pine has given guest lectures in cultural studies, literature and Irish studies at the Centre for Cultural Research, Belgrade, University of California, Berkeley, Emory (Atlanta), New York University, Georgia Southern, University of Central Florida, Centre for Irish Studies at CUA, Washington, City University (London) and the Princess Grace Library, Monaco.

In 1989, he was elected a Governor (trustee) of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, which, in 1998, bestowed on him a Fellowship honoris causa. He resigned from the RIAM in 2006.

Since 1978 Pine has been a prolific author of articles and books on Irish theatre and Irish playwrights including Oscar Wilde and Brian Friel. Of Pine's book The Diviner. The Art of Brian Friel, the Nobel poet Seamus Heaney wrote "The particularity of quotation joined with the meditative, associative habit of your mind is the book's strength. It provokes a thoughtful response in return and, as such, will be a welcome addition to the critical reaction to Friel. It should deepen the sense of his complexity and modernity, while rendering a sense of those 'truths, immemorially posited'."[10]

The Newsbrands Ireland Journalism Awards 2018 voted Richard Pine as "Critic of the Year", citing his "great erudition and fine judgement" as well as his "elegant style".

Greece

Continuing his career as a writer, Pine moved, in 2001, to the Ionian Island of Corfu in Greece to found the Durrell School of Corfu (DSC) which, for twelve years, hosted seminars on literature and the protection of the environment. The school aimed to enrich international understanding of the writings of Lawrence Durrell and his brother, the innovative ecologist and zoologist, Gerald Durrell. It closed in 2014 and was succeeded in 2016 by the Durrell Library of Corfu, an online library and website which re-commenced international seminars in 2017. Pine is a frequent guest lecturer at the Ionian University, Corfu. In 2019, he inaugurated the online "C.20 – an international journal" under the aegis of the Durrell Library of Corfu.[11] He continues his association with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland as a writer of concert programme notes.

Family

In 1972, Pine married Melanie Craigen. They have two daughters, Emilie Pine (b. 1977), an essayist and professor of drama at University College Dublin and Vanessa Pine (b. 1981), an artist and cookery writer. Pine and Craigen separated in 1983. From 1994 to 2008, Pine's partner was the concert artist and piano professor Patricia Kavanagh. In 2018, Emilie Pine published a memoir, Notes to Self, which was voted Book of the Year in the Irish Book Awards.[12]

Selected reviews

Dublin Gate Theatre, 1928–1978

  • "scholarly, fascinating, indispensable" (Terence de Vere White, Times Literary Supplement)

Oscar Wilde (1983)

  • "I have never been so impressed by the squalor of Wilde's downfall" (Thomas Kilroy, The Irish Times)

Brian Friel and Ireland's Drama (1990)

  • "essential reading for anyone interested in our theatre" (Thomas Kilroy, Sunday Tribune)
  • "genuine intellectual passion" (Ronan Sheehan, The Irish Press)
  • "a profound engagement with Friel's writing and the matter of Ireland" (Anthony Roche, Irish Literary Supplement)
  • "scholarly scrupulousness, immensely well researched, a welcome book, one that does what criticism ought to do: open up a body of work, rather than close it down" (Fintan O'Toole, The Irish Times)
  • "an absorbing philosophical study" (Christopher Murray, Theatre Ireland)

The Diviner: The Art of Brian Friel (1999)

  • "Une étude critique majeure, aussi incontournable que l'oeuvre de Friel" (Martine Pelletier, Études irlandaises)

Charles: The Life and World of Charles Acton (2010)

  • "a fine narrative, enlightened insights and meticulous research […] Pine superbly traces a cultural history of Ireland in the 20th century" (Ite O'Donovan, The Irish Times)

Minor Mythologies as Popular Literature (2018)

  • "clear, acute and surprisingly passionate […] lucid and determined, vivid and eloquent" (Jonathan Barnes, Times Literary Supplement)

Bibliography

References
  1. The Dublin University Calendar 1972-1973, Trinity College Dublin, 1972, p. 623
  2. International Directory of Philosophy and Philosophers, vol. 3, Philosophy Documentation Center, Bowling Green University, 1974, p. 266
  3. Durrell School of Corfu (DSC)
  4. Published in a limited edition of 500 copies by the Durrell School of Corfu.
  5. Robert Fisk: "The Long View: Beyond the Alexandria Quartet: a 'lost' Lawrence Durrell novel reveals the author's Israel bias", in The Independent, 24 September 2012. "But all praise to Richard Pine and the Durrell School of Corfu, who have now published the first edition of Durrell's novel ..."
  6. Lawrence Durrell (1972) "The Poetic Obsession of Dublin", in Travel & Leisure 2/4, pp. 33–36 & 69–70.
  7. The Augustan Society Omnibus, vol. 8, The Augustan Society, 1986, p. 25
  8. Anthony Roche: "Pine, Richard", in The Encyclopaedia of Ireland, ed. Brian Lalor (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2003), p. 874.
  9. Elaine Kelly: "Pine, Richard", in The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, ed. Harry White and Barra Boydell (Dublin: UCD Press, 2013), p. 841.
  10. Letter to Richard Pine from Seamus Heaney, dated 5 April 1989
    Letter to Richard Pine from Seamus Heaney, dated 5 April 1989 (page 1)
    Letter to Richard Pine from Seamus Heaney, 5 April 1989 (page 2)
    .
  11. http://www.durrelllibrarycorfu.org/c.20
  12. "Parental alcoholism, infertility, drug use, sexual violence - no subject was off limits in Emilie Pine's taboo-shattering essays". Independent.ie. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
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