Inventing Ireland: The Literature of a Modern Nation

Description

INVENTING IRELAND is the most ambitious critical history of modern Irish literature to have been published for many years. Declan Kiberd argues that the Irish literary revival of the 1890-1922 period embodied a spirit and a revolutionary, generous vision of Irishness that is still relevant to post-colonial Ireland. He develops his story through subtle and surprising readings of Lady Gregory, Synge, O'Casey, Joyce, Beckett, Flann O'Brien, Elizabeth Bowen, Heaney, Friel and younger writers to Roddy Doyle. Kiberd - one of Ireland's leading critics and a central figure in the FIELD DAY group with Brian Friel, Seamus Deane and the actor Stephen Rea - argues that the Irish Literary Revival of the 1890-1922 period embodied a spirit and a revolutionary, generous vision of Irishness that is still relevant to post-colonial Ireland. This is the perspective from which he views Irish culture. His history of Irish writing covers Yeats, Lady Gregory, Synge, O'Casey, Joyce, Beckett, Flann O'Brien, Elizabeth Bowen, Heaney, Friel and younger writers down to Roddy Doyle.

Declan Kiberd was born in Dublin in 1951. He took a degree in English and Irish at Trinity College, Dublin, and he holds a doctorate from Oxford University. Among his books are Synge and the Irish Language, Men and Feminism in Modern Literature and Idir Dha Chultur. He writes regularly for Irish newspapers, has prepared literary scripts for the BBC, and is a former director of the Yeats International Summer School. He has lectured on Irish culture in more than twenty countries and has taught at University College, Dublin, for sixteen years. He is married with three children.

A masterpiece...Kiberd is surely the finest critic of Irish literature. -- Owen Dudley Edwards * Scotsman * A critical study laced with wit, energy and unrelenting adroitness of discourse...A remarkable achievement. -- Thomas Flanagan * New York Times * Provocative, contentious, sly, tendentious, challenging, witty...A resounding success. -- Gerry Dukes * Irish Independent * Blessedly jargon-free, easy to read and - like all of Kilberd's work - full of bravura cleverness. -- Roy Foster * The Times *