Major New Publications
This volume examines eighteenth-century Irish literature, highlighting the diversity of texts, authors and approaches that characterises contemporary studies of the period. Chapters consider the contexts of history, politics, language, philosophy, gender, sexuality, and the environment while situating Irish literature in relation to Ireland, Britain, Europe and beyond. It demonstrates the exciting vitality and richness of eighteenth-century Irish literature - written and performed - as well as its complex intersections with different communities and traditions.
“A near-perfect reading of Ireland’s greatest writers” (The Irish Times)
'Hamlet' and World Cinema reveals a rich history of cinematic production extending across the globe. Making a case for Hamlet as the world's most frequently filmed text, and using specially commissioned interviews with cast, directors and screenwriters, it discusses films from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. In so doing, it rejects the Anglophone focus which has dominated criticism up to now and explores instead the multiple constituencies that have claimed Shakespeare's most celebrated work as their own.
“'Hamlet' and World Cinema is a remarkable book. In fact, there's nothing quite like it in the literature of Shakespeare on film. [Burnett’s] scholarship is astonishing as his analyses incorporate knowledge of each culture's history, politics, myths, film and stage traditions, language, as well as its appropriation of Shakespeare.” Samuel Crowl, Ohio University.
“Every poem in this book is a marvel. Taken all together they make up a work of almost miraculous depth and beauty” Sally Rooney
When Stephen Sexton was young, video games were a way to slip through the looking glass; to be in two places at once; to be two people at once. In these poems about the death of his mother, this moving, otherworldly narrative takes us through the levels of Super Mario World, whose flowered landscapes bleed into our world, and ours, strange with loss, bleed into it. His remarkable debut is a daring exploration of memory, grief and the necessity of the unreal.
Winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection.
Winner of EM Forster Award, from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.
A Sunday Times, New Statesman and Telegraph Book of the Year 2019
Offering a multifaceted critical revision of how modernism evolved out of, and coexisted with, the decadent movement, the essays in this collection reveal how decadent principles infused twentieth-century prose, poetry, drama, and newspapers. In particular, this book demonstrates the potent impact of decadence on the evolution of queer identity and self-fashioning in the early twentieth century. In close readings of an eclectic range of works by Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and D. H. Lawrence to Ronald Firbank, Bruce Nugent, and Carl Van Vechten, these essays grapple with a range of related issues, including individualism, the end of Empire, the politics of camp, experimentalism, and the critique of modernity.
“The splendid essays in this collection show in fascinating detail how a 'new' decadence after Wilde offered perverse aesthetic and political challenges to the heroic narrative of experimental modernism.” Peter Nicholls, New York University
This edited collection explores the complexities of Irish involvement in empire. Despite complaining regularly of treatment as a colony by England, Ireland nevertheless played a significant part in Britain’s imperialism, from its formative period in the late eighteenth century through to the decolonizing years of the early twentieth century. Framed by two key events of world history, the American Revolution and Indian Independence, this book examines Irish involvement in empire in several interlinked sections: through issues of migration and inhabitation; through literary and historical representations of empire; through Irish support for imperialism and involvement with resistance movements abroad; and through Irish participation in the extensive and intricate networks of empire.
With a playfully gender queer title containing both father and mother, Fothermather explores love, language and forms of attachment beyond biology. Bobbing in its sea, we find the seahorse: the curious queer creature who patterns the pages. Playful, political and inquisitive, these poems chart the experience of IVF, pregnancy and parenthood for a family taking shape in Northern Ireland, where same-sex marriage is illegal and NHS fertility treatment is withheld from same-sex couples.
“An astonishing series of nineteen poems, where the traditional literary equation between stanza and room, or the biologistic equivalence of room and womb, yield to pages of undersea fluidity and pre-linguistic play... This is a book of thoughtful welcome and letting-go, where language gives way to newness and wonder.” Vahni Capildeo, PN Review 249
When he unexpectedly loses his job, Herbie struggles to find a purpose. His wife, the great love of his life, has long left him for a Southerner, and his daughter has fled Belfast for London in search of work and an easier life. But a local cafe under new ownership, a friend in need and an unexpected spark of romance give Herbie something to wake up for. From the author of Gull and Backstop Land, Where Are We Now? is a novel about lost love, growing older and the realities of life in a society still haunted by decades of violence. By turns moving and funny, topical and sharp, it is a life-affirming story of a life not yet over.
“No one is more acutely tuned to the heartbeat of Belfast than Glenn Patterson and no one is more skilled at capturing all its love and madness. He does so with both tenderness and humour” David Park