Book description
'I have him bitched, balloxed and bewildered, for there's a system
and a science in taking the piss out of a screw and I'm a well-trained
man at it.'
So writes Brendan Behan, poet, writer and literary legend, of the
episode that coloured his life. Arrested in Liverpool as an agitator
for the IRA, he was tried and sent to reform school. He was sixteen
years old.
The world he entered was brutal and coldly indifferent. Conditions
were primitive, and violence simmered just below the surface. Yet
Brendan Behan found something more positive than hate in Borstal:
friendship, solidarity and healing flashes of kindness.
Extraordinarily vivid, fluent, and moving, this is a superb and
unforgettable piece of writing. Borstal Boy was adapted into a
film in 2000.
Brendan Behan was born in Dublin in 1923. A member of the IRA, he
was sentenced to three years in Borstal in 1939 and a further fourteen
years in 1942.
He became a dominant literary figure almost overnight with the 1956
production of his play The Quare Fellow, based on his prison
experiences. This recognition was reinforced by the success of
Borstal Boy and his second play, The Hostage.
Brendan Behan described his recreations as 'drinking, talking, and
swimming' but no factual description could do justice to his
flamboyant, larger-than-life character. Generally regarded as
irreverent and unpredictable if not actually dangerous, there was
nonetheless no publicity which ever obscured his marked talents or his
great understanding of human nature. A man whose contemporaries
include Flann O'Brien, Patrick Kavanagh and Anthony Cronin, Behan was
a key part of Ireland's great modern literary tradition.
Brendan Behan died in 1964.
