Keith Hopper - Böcker

Initially published in 1984, Dermot Healy’s stunning first novel, Fighting with Shadows, returns to print after almost thirty years. Largely set in the border village of Fanacross, Co. Fermanagh, as Ireland stumbles clumsily toward modernity, the Allen family negotiate a bitter and troubled terrain. Fighting with Shadows offers extraordinary and poetic glimpses of the compelling lives of ordinary people. The novel’s landscape is of borderlands, of in-between spaces; it tells of violently sundered geographical borders, of maddening religious differences, of the anguished gaps between people as they struggle to find each other, and of how the dead reside among its inhabitants long after they’ve passed. At once realist account and nightmarish magic realist fable, Fighting with Shadows occupies a truly important position in the history of modern Irish fiction.

Like many of the great Irish writers before him, Dermot Healy first announced himself as a writer of intricate and innovative short stories. Healy’s stories are set in small-town Ireland and its rural environs, and in the equally suffocating confines of the Irish expat communities in London. Throughout these texts, Healy demonstrates a deep sense of compassion towards the marginalized and the dispossessed, without ever becoming sentimental or clichéd. The language is earthy and imagistic by turn, and he continually seeks to extend the formal boundaries of the genre.Gathering all of Healy’s stories together for the first time, this collection includes the long prose-drama “Before the Off” and Healy’s final short works, “Along the Lines” and “Images.”

This riotous collection at last gathers together an expansive selection of Flann O'Brien's shorter fiction in a single volume, as well as O'Brien's last and unfinished novel, "Slattery's Sago Saga." Also included are new translations of several stories originally published in Irish, and other rare pieces. With some of these stories appearing here in book form for the very first time, and others previously unavailable for decades, "Short Fiction" is a welcome gift for every Flann O'Brien fan worldwide.

Writing the Sky: Observations and Essays on Dermot Healy is a comprehensive collection of critical essays, memoirs, poetry, and other writerly responses devoted to the life and work of the late Dermot Healy (1947– 2014). Healy was an accomplished poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and editor, and so these essays and observations address the entire range of his eclectic and exciting oeuvre. While paying due tribute to the memory of the man himself, the collection primarily seeks to establish a series of important critical perspec- tives through which Healy’s writings can be properly viewed and assessed. Contemporary writers and poets— including Colm Tóibín, Neil Jordan, Aidan Higgins, Alannah Hopkin, Kevin Barry, Annie Proulx, Michael Longley, Roddy Doyle, Tess Gallagher, Timothy O’Grady, Glenn Patterson, Patrick McCabe, and many others—of- fer creative reflections on Healy’s work, while literary critics provide a wide-ranging foundation for future Healy scholarship. In total, over forty contributors from more than a dozen countries provide insight into one of Ireland’s most powerful and unique literary voices. This collection is absolutely crucial for everyone interested in the work of Dermot Healy and for all devotees of Irish literature.