Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation

Declan Kiberd

Vintage, 1996 - History - 719 pages

Kiberd - one of Ireland's leading critics and a central figure in the FIELD DAY group with Brian Friel, Seamus Deane and the actor Stephen Rea - argues that the Irish Literary Revival of the 1890-1922 period embodied a spirit and a revolutionary, generous vision of Irishness that is still relevant to post-colonial Ireland. This is the perspective from which he views Irish culture. His history of Irish writing covers Yeats, Lady Gregory, Synge, O'Casey, Joyce, Beckett, Flann O'Brien, Elizabeth Bowen, Heaney, Friel and younger writers down to Roddy Doyle.

About the author

Declan Kiberd was born in Dublin in 1951. He took a degree in English and Irish at Trinity College, Dublin, and he holds a doctorate from Oxford University. Among his books are Synge and the Irish Language, Men and Feminism in Modern Literature and Idir Dha Chultur. He writes regularly for Irish newspapers, has prepared literary scripts for the BBC, and is a former director of the Yeats International Summer School. He has lectured on Irish culture in more than twenty countries and has taught at University College, Dublin, for sixteen years. He is married with three children.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation; Literary criticism
• Author: Declan Kiberd
• Edition: reprint, reissue
• Publisher: Vintage, 1996
• ISBN: 009958221X, 9780099582212
• Length: 719 pages
• Subjects: History / Europe / Ireland; Literary Collections / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Literary Criticism / General; Literary Criticism / Modern / 19th Century; Literary Criticism / Modern / 20th Century; Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / Culture, Race & Ethnicity