Josephine Hart
Josephine Hart (1942–2011) was a trailblazing author and passionate advocate for poetry, whose work and vision continue to inspire audiences worldwide.
Her debut novel, Damage (1990), captivated readers with its raw exploration of passion and betrayal, encapsulated in the unforgettable line: "Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive." Translated into 26 languages and selling over a million copies globally, Damage was adapted into a 1992 film directed by Louis Malle, starring Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche.
Born in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, Ireland, Josephine grew up as one of seven children, steeped in a culture where, as she described, “life was language before it was anything else.” She credited poets as the heroes—and gods—of her youth, shaping her view of the world. Her deep love for the spoken word carried through her life, culminating in The Josephine Hart Poetry Hour, where she often reminded audiences that poetry’s “trinity of sound, sense, and sensibility” gives voice to human experience like no other art form.
Josephine’s edited collection Catching Life by the Throat (2006), born from these celebrated poetry evenings, declared:
“Poetry has never let me down. Without poetry, I would have found life less comprehensible, less bearable, and infinitely less enjoyable.”
Josephine moved to London at 22 and rose to prominence at Haymarket Publishing, where she became a director. In the late 1980s, she founded the Gallery Poets group, gathering luminaries such as Juliet Stephenson, Roger Moore, Bono, and Harold Pinter to perform the works of WH Auden, Sylvia Plath, WB Yeats, and more. The Poetry Hour, an evolution of this project, became a stage for leading actors to honor poetry’s timeless brilliance.
Her love for T. S. Eliot led to Let Us Go Then, You and I, a theatrical exploration of Eliot’s life and works, which enjoyed a six-week West End run in 1987—marking the first poetry program to achieve such success. As a producer, Josephine brought award-winning plays like The House of Bernarda Alba, The Vortex, and The Black Prince to life in the West End. She also ventured into television with Books By My Bedside for Thames TV, interviewing figures like Derek Jarman and Jackie Collins about their reading habits.
Josephine’s literary career extended far beyond Damage. She authored five more novels, including Sin (1992), Oblivion (1995), The Stillest Day (1998), The Reconstructionist (2001), and The Truth About Love (2009). Damage and Sin will soon be reissued as Virago Modern Classics, a tribute Josephine found thrilling. True to her generous nature, she once sent Virago a bouquet of roses with a line from Marianne Moore: “Your thorns are the best part of you.”
Her final novel, The Truth About Love, was the only one she set in Ireland. It delved into misplaced passion and national mythology, themes that hinted at Josephine’s personal tragedies. By age 17, she had lost three siblings—a profound grief she described as “an extraordinary thing to know that such things can be survived.” Reflecting on loss, she often turned to poetry and literature, where, as she said, “grief and loss are part of the human condition.”