Edna O’Brien was the last great Irish iconoclast
Great Irish literature is defined by dissent. So why do so many writers uphold the status quo?
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Banned, burned and reviled: what was so radical about Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls?
The story of one of the most famous, infamous and beloved Irish novels of the 20th century.
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Who’s offended by Virginia Woolf?
How the writer’s Tavistock Square statue became a battleground for her legacy.
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What the Tories did to us
The essay collection The Conservative Effect explores how theatrical short-termism and specious rhetoric defined 14 years of mis-rule.
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Generation Not Yet
A quietly incendiary new book reveals why millennials, paralysed by doubt, are struggling to make the leap into parenthood.
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Why I feel like a literary Gareth Southgate
Also this week: My part in the great IT outage, and trying to impress Keir Starmer.
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Romance on the run in the Old West
Kevin Barry’s new novel The Heart in Winter sets passion against violence on the brutal American frontier.
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The best children’s books for summer 2024
Find dreams of better worlds in new books for young readers.
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