Tag Archives: irish literature

Judging Books by Covers

Reading contemporary Irish literature cover to cover

I have a …a piece? A few paragraphs. A segment! In this new compilarticle* from the truly excellent folks at Contemporary Irish Literature. It’s a nice piece and well worth a read (although I’ll have to come back to Taylor Allgeier-Follett’s bit on A Ghost in the Throat because it’s sitting on my to-read pile and I’m terrified of any form of spoilers about things I’m planning to read). I liked this line from Eric Swartz n those glorious blue Fitzcarraldo editions: ‘there is something to be said for a book cover that shows its scars’

My own bit is on how the marketing of Anna Burns’ novels has shifted from ‘Troubles lit! Shocking! Rubber bullets!’ to ‘Ooh, Irish contemporary literary fiction, how very Irish and literary’ with changing fashions in publishing. But you’ll find that out when you read it, won’t you! Eh!

* A neologormanteau

From the Ashes: The Celtic Phoenix, Anna Burns’ “Milkman” and Sally Rooney’s “Normal People”

I’ve got a new piece, adapted from the ‘coda’ that concluded my PhD, published in Alluvium which is a journal I’ve long admired.

It’s a very wee academic article so if you’d like to see the sort of thing I spent, oh, several years of my life furrowing my brow about, give it a look. It starts by digging backwards along the etymology of the term ‘Celtic Phoenix’ which was a fun bit of burrowing. The ‘Celtic Phoenix’ started out life as a satire of the short-termedness of wanting the crisis capitalism of the Celtic Tiger to return, but quickly found itself unironically appropriated by mainstream economists who seem hungry for exactly that.

Against this backdrop I wonder what the fiction of the ‘Celtic Phoenix’ will be, positing Sally Rooney’s familiar realism and Anna Burns’ more troubling innovations as alternative paths for Irish fiction. It’s been a somewhat thorny path since I wrapped my PhD up so I’m really glad to have a new piece of academic writing out there in the world, and very grateful to the editors of this issue for their enthusiasm and support.

You can read the article at the link below:

[Broken link removed]

UPDATE: That goes to a gambling website now? Updated URL here: https://alluvium.bacls.org/2021/03/08/from-the-ashes-the-celtic-phoenix/