Liam Ryan – författare

Enemies of the red flag is the first systematic book-length study of British anti-socialism in the early twentieth century. It demonstrates that opposition to socialism was not confined to the Conservative Party but constituted a diverse political and cultural phenomenon that crossed divisions of class, party and belief. The book examines anti-socialist campaigns, stereotypes and ideas across parliamentary politics, voluntary activism and popular culture. It emphasises the centrality of religion to particular forms of British anti-socialism and the significance of conflicts between Christianity and secularism. By situating anti-socialism within wider transnational, cultural and ideological contexts, it highlights the importance of Europe to British politics and foregrounds the explicitly ideological character of civil society in early twentieth-century Britain.

Liam Ryan canvasses a wide spectrum of subjects in his third collection of poems What's happening in the Shade. Part I of the collection visits life, death and religion, while Part II examines love in many of its forms: parental love, spousal love, and unrequited love. Formidable in lyrical intensity throughout, there are no boundaries to the places Ryan will visit in his poetry. His cold, dark winters are punctured by light, dewy springs, and for every green meadow full of emotion there’s a wooden desk covered with precise lines and measurements. He provides both objective observations and his private thoughts, with a joke or a pun always waiting just around the corner. Throughout What's happening in the Shade, Ryan borrows the words of fifteen world poets - including Pablo Neruda, Mirabai, and Rainer Maria Rilke - translates them, and transforms them to his own, offering new versions of lofty poetry to professor and novice alike. In this newest collection of poems, Liam Ryan truly becomes master of all trades.