I’m a writer from Dublin, Ireland. My first book, Hidden City: Adventures and Explorations in Dublin, a highly acclaimed travelogue that surveyed Ireland’s capital in the aftermath of the economic crash, was published by Penguin in 2014. It was made a Guardian book of the week. My second book, Hit Factories: A Journey Through the Industrial Cities of British Pop, a personal exploration of the musical and social history of urban Britain, was published in June 2019 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. (It was also a Guardian book of the week.) I contribute to the Irish Times, the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books, and have had essays published in the White Review, Dublin Review and Gorse. I hold a BA in English and History from University College Dublin, an MA in Modernism from University of East Anglia, and a PhD in History from University College Dublin. In 2013 I won the John Heygate Award for travel writing, and in 2019 the Irish Times listed me as one of the top ten rising stars of Ireland’s literary scene. I am a Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow and work as an editor for Penguin Classics.
Contact me at karl@karlwhitney.ie. You can also follow me on Twitter @karlwhitney, on Facebook, and on Instagram.