Eamon Maher – författare

This collection of essays, written by many of the foremost McGahern scholars, provides solid reasons for why the Leitrim writer has assumed canonical status since his premature death in 2006, an event which sparked something akin to a period of national mourning in Ireland. The reason why so many people felt his loss so keenly is probably due to the fact that McGahern’s attention to detail, his feel for landscape, his understanding of the Irish psyche, his carefully chiselled prose, his love of social and religious rituals, all contributed to his remarkable evocation of what it was like to live in Ireland at a specific time in its evolution – that is to say, from the time of independence up to the beginning of the new millennium.This is a multidisciplinary collection which situates McGahern in his literary context and explains the ingredients that make him such a revered writer, one who had his finger firmly on the pulse of the nation. Violence, love and desire, ecology, memory, friendship, photography, rage, sin, are examined with a view to assessing how they are pertinent to McGahern’s work and the extent to which they contribute to his literary legacy. Declan Kiberd speaks from personal experience of the young writer who taught in Belgrove National School and was fascinated with cricket, whereas Donal Ryan describes how reading McGahern almost caused him to abandon his literary vocation because of his belief that he could never write like this master of prose.There is something in this book for both the specialist and non-specialist alike and it is essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in McGahern the man and writer.

«Natalie Wynn has written a definitive account of Irish Jewish history in the period of mass migration at the turn of the twentieth century. She unravels the myths—such as accidental arrival from eastern Europe, or untroubled social mobility as a model minority—which have hitherto characterized Irish Jews. Community, Identity, Conflict moves from detailed studies of local communities (Belfast, Dublin, Cork, Limerick) to the metropolitan and colonial contexts of minority formation. As Dr Wynn adeptly shows, the everyday ambivalence towards minorities in Irish culture is a centuries-old history which is still present today. Her meticulous and compelling study will be of value to Irish studies, Jewish studies, and anyone interested in the life experience of refugees.»

(Bryan Cheyette, Emeritus Professor, University of Reading, and author of The Ghetto: A Very Short Introduction (2020))

«Natalie Wynn has produced an outstanding contribution to the relevant literature. It dismantles established myths and opens up the field of Irish Jewish studies with a fresh, innovative interpretation, which sets new standards in scholarship.»

(Eugenio Biagini, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History, University of Cambridge)

As a small community located on the peripheries of Europe and of the Jewish world, Ireland’s Jewish community is something of an outlier and is often portrayed as having a unique history or being quaint or quirky in character. This book challenges this narrative by contextualizing Irish Jewry as a community that has been defined by the experience and mythology of Jewish mass migration. This book charts the history of Ireland’s Jewish community at a time of rapid growth and cultural, political and social transition, from British rule to Irish independence, exploring the relationship between Jews, Irish society and Irish Jewish communal tradition. Key themes include arrival and settlement; the dynamics between «native» and immigrant Jews; acculturation and hybridity; intracommunal conflict; gender; and Jewish/non-Jewish relations.

To mark the fact that the Reimagining Ireland series will soon have one hundred volumes in print, this book brings together a selection of essays from the first fifty volumes, carefully chosen to give a flavour of the diversity and multidisciplinary nature of the series. Following a chronological order, it begins with an essay by Luke Gibbons tracing the roots of modernity from the middle decades of the nineteenth century and concludes with Michael Cronin’s discussion of time and place in global Ireland. In between, the reader will find a rich variety of essays on literary criticism, poetry, drama, photography, modernity, advertising, visual culture, immigration and feminism.

This is a collection that will appeal to anyone with a scholarly or personal interest in the cultural forces that have shaped modern Ireland. It is also a testament to the rude good health of contemporary Irish studies, showcasing the work of a talented array of established and emerging scholars currently working in the area.

C'est la qualité transculturelle, atemporelle et transgénérique des textes de Colum McCann qui intéresse cet ouvrage. L'auteur n'ancre complètement son œuvre dans aucune tradition, aucun courant ou mode défini, et propose des textes récalcitrants à toute tentative de classification.