Book description
John McGahern is considered by many to be the most important Irish
prose writer of the last fifty years. McGahern's short stories equal
his finest novels, reflecting both the richness of the ordinary, and
the extraordinary, in the lives of a variety of individuals: the
jilted lover waiting with would-be writers in a Dublin pub on a summer
evening; the bitter climax between a father and son as a marriage
begins; the fortunes and misfortunes of the Kirkwood family; and many
more. For this revised edition, completed shortly before his death,
John McGahern edited and deleted a number of stories from the
Collected Stories that first appeared in 1992. This is the authorised
edition of a modern classic. 'He writes with authority and gravity,
and with an instinct for the most appropriate detail . . . His terse
narrative seems free and full. He has the gift of being able to move
fluently and unselfconsciously between a simple and a heightened
style.' Times Literary Supplement 'One of the greatest writers of our
era.' Hilary Mantel, New Statesman
John McGahern was born in Dublin in 1934 and brought up in the
Republic of Ireland. He trained to be a primary-school teacher before
becoming a full-time writer, and later taught and travelled
extensively. He lived in County Leitrim. The author of six highly
acclaimed novels and four collections of short stories, he was the
recipient of numerous awards and honours, including a Society of
Authors Travelling Scholarship, the American-Irish Award, the Prix
Etrangère Ecureuil and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des
Lettres. Amongst Women, which won both the GPA and the Irish Times
Award, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and made into a four-part
BBC television series. His work appeared in numerous anthologies and
has been translated into many languages. In 2005, his autobiography,
Memoir, won the South Bank Literature Award. John McGahern died in 2006.
