Book description
Bryon's name is part of the English language. The word 'Byronic'
suggests excess, diabolical deeds and a rebelliousness answering neither
to king nor commoner. Byron, more than any other poet, has come to
personify the poet as rebel, imaginative and lawless, reaching beyond
race, creed or frontier, his gigantic flaws redeemed by a magnetism and
ultimately a heroism that by ending in tragedy raised it and him from
the particular to the universal. In more than twenty books, Edna
O'Brien has charted the emotional and psychic landscape of her native
Ireland. Often criticised in her own country for her outspoken stance,
she has forged a universal audience; the San Francisco Chronicle
described her as 'a worthy heir to the great Irish forebears in Irish
literature', while Le Figaro noted that 'the breathlessness of her
language is comparable to Faulkner'. Awards and prizes include the Irish
PEN Lifetime Achievement Award, Writers' Guild of Great Britain, Premier
Cavour (Italian), American National Arts Gold Medal and Ulysses Medal
2006.
