Liam O'Flaherty

Irish Portraits (eBook, ePUB)

14 Short Stories

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Born in 1896, Liam O'Flaherty is regarded as one of the most gifted writers Ireland has ever produced. His name is as much associated with recklessness and bravado as with literary achievement: he was handsome and daring, and by the time he was thirty his reputation was enviable. O'Flaherty's buccaneering spirit made him decide to join the Irish Guards: after being invalided out of the British Army in 1917 he travelled to various parts of the world taking all kinds of menial jobs, and it was not until he had been exiled from Ireland in 1922 for a wild escapade in 'The Troubles' that he began to write. He has the Irish gift for humour and vividness; for the basis of his stories he chooses simple situations which he evokes with insight and real charm.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK eBooks
• Seitenzahl: 142
• Erscheinungstermin: 28. September 2011
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781448203512
• Artikelnr.: 38312056

Autorenporträt

Liam O'Flaherty (also known as Liam Ó Flaithearta) was born in 1896 in the small village of Gort na gCapall, on one of the Aran Islands in Galway. In 1908, at the age of twelve, he went to Rockwell College, and then went on to study at Holy Cross and University College, Dublin - he did not attend the first two schools for long.

O'Flaherty initially intended to join the priesthood, but in 1917 he left school to join the Irish Guards, enlisting under the name 'Bill Ganly'. He was injured on the Western Front, and some believe that shell shock may have been responsible for his mental illness, which became apparent when he suffered the first of two mental breakdowns in 1933.

After the war O'Flaherty left Ireland and moved to the United States, where he lived in Hollywood for a short time. He also travelled throughout the United States and Europe, and the letters he wrote during his wanderings were later published. Many of O'Flaherty's works of fiction have common themes of nature and Ireland; some his best short stories were written in Irish.In 1923, O'Flaherty published his first novel, Thy Neighbour's Wife, thought to be one of his best. In 1935, his novel The Informer (for which he had been awarded the 1925 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction) was made into a film by the well-known director John Ford, a cousin of O'Flaherty.

Over the next couple of years he published other novels and short stories, while struggling with mental illness and breakdowns. He died in Dublin in 1984, aged 88.

Inhaltsangabe

The Painted Woman Your Honour The Fall of Joseph Timmins The Terrorist The
Bladder Mackerel for Sale The Inquisition The Outcast Selling Pigs The
Fireman's Death The Doctor's Visit The Struggle At the Forge Blackmail
Colic A Note on the Author