Ferdia Lennon was born and raised in Dublin. He holds a bachelor's degree in history and classics from University College Dublin and a master's degree in prose fiction from the University of East Anglia. His short stories have appeared in publications such as The Irish Times and The Stinging Fly. In 2019 and 2021, he received Literature Bursary Awards from the Arts Council of Ireland. Glorious Exploits is his first novel. A Sunday Times bestseller, it was adapted for BBC Radio 4 and was the winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2024, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. It was also nominated for many other awards, including the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. After spending many years in Paris, he now lives in Norwich with his wife and son.

Lennon will visit Colgate as part of the 2026 Living Writers series. This event is co-sponsored by the Department of the Classics.  

This series is hosted by the Department of English and Creative Writing with generous support provided by the Parshley Christ Endowment for Living Writers, the Olive B. O'Connor Foundation, as well as the Offices of the Provost/Dean and the Office of the President.

If you are unable to attend the author visit, you can sign up to join virtually.

View the complete list of author visits.