A long-awaited collection of superb and distinctive essays moving between Ireland and the Balkans, often considering parallels between Belfast and Sarajevo in such well-known work as “A Week in Sarajevo”, “Weather Report: Good Friday Week, 1998”, “Troubled Belfast”, “A Day with the VJ”, “The Ethnic Basis of Irish Poetry” and “The View from the Lagan”. An immigrant and distinguished poet, Agee brings a unique perspective to life in Ireland and the Balkans with their communal and sectarian histories. Agee is a writer particularly concerned with the “ethical imagination” as exemplified by his “poetic work of nonfiction” Trump Rant, a nuanced exploration of authoritarian drift and thwarted democratic aspiration in a number of world-historical contexts, from Belfast to the Balkans to the formerly Confederate South. He divides his time between Ireland, Scotland and Croatia.
