DEMAND for an Irish author's books has rocketed across Europe after she was dragged into the middle of one of the most public marital spats of all time.

Dublin-based author Catherine Dunne was shocked to hear her name mentioned in the open row between former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and his wife Veronica Lario last week.

Business tycoon Berlusconi was overheard propositioning two women at a recent Italian TV award ceremony. After his remarks appeared on the front of a national newspaper, his wife wrote a letter to a newspaper demanding a public apology from her husband.

In the letter to La Repubblica, the Roman daily owned by one of Berlusconi's deadliest business enemies, Lario referred to her husband's public flirtation as "injurious to my dignity", saying it "cannot be reduced to a jocular outburst. I request a public apology from my husband. . .

not having received one privately."

Describing how deeply her husband's comments had hurt her, Lario stated in the letter that she felt like a woman in one of the novels of Irish writer Catherine Dunne.

"I ask if, like the Catherine Dunne character, I have to regard myself as 'half of nothing', " she wrote.

Speaking to the Sunday Tribune this weekend, Dunne said she had heard about the Italian furore via a text message from an Italian friend.

"I have been in Spain for the winter finishing my forthcoming novel At A Time Like This and I couldn't believe it when I heard about the Berlusconi spat, " said Dunne.

"A friend of mine in Rome sent me a text message to say that my name was all over the Italian media. I texted her back to find out that my name was used in the row between the Berlusconis and I thought it was bizarre.

"I asked myself, 'How the hell did one of my books end up in the middle of a marital spat?' After that I started to get calls from Italian journalists looking for my reaction to it all.

"It is an extraordinary tale by any standards and my reaction has been the same as any writer would have. Every writer is delighted when something they have written has resonance with somebody and I had no idea that Veronica Lario reads my books."

A surprise mention of a book in an unexpected place can have a profound effect on a title's sales, as the mention of Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman in the hit US TV series Lost has proven.

Dunne's first novel, In The Beginning, was published here in 1997 and was published under the title Half of Nothing in Italy the following year.

"In the past week my books have been selling out in Italian bookstores and my publisher has had to order extra print runs, " said Dunne.

"I had no idea that Mrs Berlusconi was a fan of my 1997 book and this has come completely out of the leftfield.

I have never met her but I have heard that she has always been discreet, while her husband is rumoured to have been linked to about nine women. What happened the other night was just a bridge too far for her."

Born in Dublin in 1954, Dunne is a former teacher and has just completed her sixth novel. At A Time Like This which will be published in August.

Dunne's surprise mention in the highest echelons of Italian society is sure to boost sales of her new book. "It is comical to be linked in any manner or means with the Berlusconis!" she said.