Booker win 'a circus' for Ireland's Anne Enright

Irish author Anne Enright has been catapulted from what she describes as the "monkish" life of a writer into the international spotlight since she won the Man Booker Prize for her novel, The Gathering.

Appearing at the Toronto International Festival of Authors this weekend, Enright described the hoopla around her book as "a circus."

"People wanted to design dresses for me. Irish television wanted to give me a stylist and go around shopping with me on camera," said the Dublin-based author and mother of two.

"I said, 'I think I can get the stylist without the camera, thank you very much.' I don't want the whole country looking at the size of my backside in one dress or another."

A surprise winner over favourites such as Mister Pip by New Zealand's Lloyd Jones and On Chesil Beach by British novelist Ian McEwan, Enright is expected to enjoy a huge boost in book sales from the publicity generated by the prestigious prize.

But that means very little to her.

"I never mind it not being well-known," she says. "It wasn't my first priority in life. I always just wanted the space to write the books."

She welcomed the opportunity to meet Michael Ondaatje, a Canadian writer she has always admired, at the Toronto festival.

"If you look at the early careers of, say, someone like Michael Ondaatje, how many people read In the Skin of the Lion? It was 4,000 or 7,000 copies of that book, but that was a book that changed my whole attitude to literature. And people who read it, remembered it," she said.

In the Skin of the Lion, published in 1987, was nominated for the Governor General's Award.

"So I don't mind if only 4,000 people read my book, if they are the right people. That's fine by me."

The Gathering, a bleak family story that looks at an extended Irish family as they gather for a wake,was described by Booker jury member Howard Davies as "powerful, uncomfortable and, at times, angry."

"Families are endlessly interesting," Enright said. "The family is where stories are. That's where stories start."

She said she misses the depressed characters of the book amid the media attention that came with her win.

She also thinks about whether she'd "used" them and their troubles to further her personal success.

"You get more, sort of, afraid for the book and tender of the book and hope the book doesn't fall apart now, under all of this," Enright said.

"I feel that I have to apologize and defend the book at all times. But secretly, there's a little bit of me that says now: 'I've won the Booker so you can all shut up.'"