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"Sean O'Faolain (1900-1991) was one of the most important Irish writers in the first half of the twentieth century. He is most admired and best remembered for his 90 or so short stories, which first appeared in book form in 1932 and continued to do so until his Collected Stories were published in 1980. But he also wrote novels, biographies, travel, a memoir, and so on. O'Faolain joined the IRA as a young man and fought in the Irish War of Independence. By the 1930s his politics had altered. He lived for a time in both the United States and England before returning to Ireland (and eventually becoming director of the Irish Arts Council), and became known as an outspoken critic of the narrow conservatism and provincialism of Irish society. Especially important in this light are the years between 1940 and 1946, when he served as editor of The Bell, the most important cultural magazine in Dublin at the time."-- "This book includes a generous selection of O'Faolain's essays, just over half of them written for The Bell, but also others that first appeared in a variety of magazines in the USA and the UK as well as Ireland. They span a period from 1928 to 1976. The state of Ireland--its politics, history, religion, censorship, languages, literature and culture--is a constant and predominant theme. But the book also includes essays on other topics, e.g. Charles Dickens, censorship in America, religious art, and the final "Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man." Brad Kent has added voluminous notes and an illuminating introduction that sets O'Faolain in the context, not only of Irish writers, but of public intellectuals in his time elsewhere."--
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