The Dark

Description

Set in rural Ireland, John McGahern's second novel is about adolescence and a guilty, yet uncontrollable sexuality that is contorted and twisted bo both puritanical state religion and a strange, powerful and ambiguous relationship between son and widower father. Against a background evoked with quiet, undemonstrated mastery, McGahern explores with precision and tenderness a human situation, superficially very ordinary, but inwardly an agony of longing and despair.

John McGahern was born in Dublin in 1934 and brought up in the West of Ireland. He is a graduate of University College, Dublin. He has worked as a Primary School teacher and has held various academic posts at universities in Britain, Ireland and America. In the opinion of the Observer, John McGahern is 'Ireland's greatest living novelist'. He is the author of six highly acclaimed novels and four collections of short stories, and has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including a Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship and the American-Irish Award. Amongst Women,which has won both the GPA and the Irish Times Award, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and made into a four-part BBC television series. His work has appeared in anthologies and has been translated into many languages. John McGahern lives in County Leitrim, Ireland.