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| Hearsay: |
How come most of Ireland’s great contemporary writers are little known outside Ireland? Roddy Doyle, who actually reads Bookninja, and only Bookninja, so he tells me (I bet he tells all the girls that), informs Mark Salter, who gives a survey of what we’re missing:
…when Doyle offered the opinion that James Joyce was nearly unreadable. It wasn’t the criticism of Joyce that caught my attention. Doyle had said the same thing four years earlier on the centenary of Bloomsday, the day in which Joyce’s most celebrated work, Ulysses, takes place, provoking considerable consternation among Joyce-admiring literati. It was his subsequent declaration that Jennifer Johnston was the best writer in Ireland that provoked my curiosity. Doyle isn’t the only prominent Irish writer who so esteems Ms. Johnston. She is prolific and typically very well reviewed. I consider myself a pretty thorough reader of contemporary Irish writers. I’ve read and enjoyed Doyle, John Banville, Sebastian Barry, John McGahern, Bernard MacLaverty, Anne Enright, Colm Toibin, and others. There is no author whom I more admire than William Trevor. But I had never heard of Jennifer Johnston.
As it turns out, I’m not alone. Trusting Doyle’s judgment, I attempted to purchase some of her books. I went to eight bookstores and found not one of her 14 books in any of them. Nor had any Johnston book ever graced their shelves. Amazon didn’t stock a single title. She doesn’t have a U.S. publisher. I eventually purchased a half-dozen of her novels from online used-book dealers, all but one of them shipped from overseas.
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March 20th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
George- I haven’t heard of her either, but I do have to suggest that when you are seeking out books, a library will usually get them for you and it won;t cost you a penny. Just a tip from a librarian’s wife who has never had a minute’s trouble finding any book. Irish or non-Irish. Ever. Cheers!
March 20th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
She’s brilliant. Or at least the one book I’ve read of hers is — It’s called This is Not a Novel.
March 20th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
OK, Ok — I’m sold. I’ll rush right out and get Jennifer Johnston. And not secondhand or through a library. If she’s that good, I want her to get a couple of Euros on the sale!
March 21st, 2009 at 10:06 am
Some of the best Irish writing now is in crime fiction; Ken Bruen, John Connolly, Tana French, Declan Hughes, Declan Burke and even Banville writing as Benjamin Black.
March 21st, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Can I put a my tuppence-worth in for Kevin Barry? An emerging Irish short story writer with a unique, dry humourous style, published by the Dublin-based litmag Stinging Fly. His collection ‘There Are Little Kingdoms’ deserves to be more widely read.
March 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 am
Alternatively: the amazing books Irish writers write *before* the book that gets attention across the ocean are wiped out. For example, Colum McCann’s early short fiction (”Fishing the Sloe-Back River”) is phenomenal but he’s known for his later novels (”The Dancer”). His book of stories & novellas “Everything In This Country Must” is also staggering.
March 24th, 2009 at 7:32 am
the Irish have traditionally been great short story writers. I’d vote for Dubliners above
anything else that Joyce wrote for example. Jennifer Johnston’s stuff is great, and look out
for both Bernard and Michael Maclaverty (not related to my knowledge).