"Who are the Irish writers working today who will be read in one hundr ed year's time?" That was the question that RTE put to a panel of scholars, editors and others. The result is a list of writers, each of whom will have a dialogue with Mike Murphy for a forthcoming television and radio series "reading the future". This work includes an incisive introduction by Declan Kiberd, consulting editor to the RTE series and chairman of the selection panel. There will also be biographical notes on each writer and a chronology of Irish literature covering the period in which the selected writers have been working. The result is an insight into the lives and creative minds of 12 great writers. The writers to be interviewed are: John Banville; Marina Carr; Brian Friel; Seamus Heaney; Thomas Kinsella; Michael Longley; John McGahern; Tom Murphy; Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill; Edna O'Brien; and William Trevor.