Encyclopedia of Literature: New from Tartary to Frank O'connor

Literature Reference: American Literature, English Literature, Classics & Modern Fiction

New Historicism - Renaissance Self-Fashioning, Shakespearean Negotiations

The term was coined by Stephen Greenblatt to describe a development in American literary scholarship and criticism which sought to combine the acquisitions of contemporary theory with a return to a historical perspective felt to have been too long and too carelessly abandoned by the New Criticism and its descendants. Walter Benjamin is a (remote) predecessor, and Michel Foucault is a powerful infl…

less than 1 minute read

New Humanism, The - Shelburne Essays, Toward Standards, Matthew Arnold: How To Know Him, On Contemporary Literature

a movement promoted by numerous eminent American scholars and critics from the early 1920s onward to counter what they saw as the threatened dissolution of ethical and artistic standards. Irving Babbitt's works, attacking the fallacies of Romanticism and appealing to Hellenistic values, were central to the New Humanism; its leaders also included Paul Elmer More (1864?1937), whose Shelburne Essays …

1 minute read

New Journalism, The - In Cold Blood, Kandy Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, The New Journalism

is generally considered to have begun in the 1960s with the debate generated by the publication of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (1965) and Tom Wolfe's Kandy Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1965). This debate focused on the new blending of literary technique with journalistic fact. Also referred to as the ?nonfiction novelists?, these writers combined the ?objective credibility? of journa…

2 minute read

New Lines - New Lines, The New Poetry, Mavericks, New Lines 2

an anthology of verse by the poets central to the Movement, published in 1956 under the editorship of Robert Conquest, who supplied eight poems. The other contributors were Kingsley Amis, Donald Davie, D. J. Enright, Thom Gunn, John Holloway (1920??), Elizabeth Jennings, Philip Larkin, and John Wain. With clear reference to the poets of the New Apocalypse, Conquest's introduction dismissed much of…

1 minute read

New Machiavelli, The - The Prince, The New Machiavelli

a novel by H. G. Wells, published in 1911. Wells's first-person narrator, Richard Remington, resembles the author of The Prince in being a politician in exile, his career in ruins, dreaming of a strengthened and more perfect state. The narrative traces his intellectual and emotional formation and his adventures among the Edwardian political intelligentsia. Graham Wallas, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, …

1 minute read

New Men, The - Strangers and Brothers, The Masters

a novel by C. P. Snow, published in 1954. Like other novels in the series Strangers and Brothers this book is narrated by Lewis Eliot, the Cambridge tutor who moved from Cambridge to work for the British government. The central character of the novel is Lewis's brother Martin who is involved in the manufacture of the atomic bomb. The narrative starts before the outbreak of the Second World War, an…

1 minute read

New Poetry, The - New Lines, The New Poetry

an anthology of verse edited by Al Alvarez, first published by Penguin Books in 1962. Alvarez's controversial introduction argued that since the decline of Modernism ?the machinery of modern English poetry seems to have been controlled by a series of negative feed-backs?; the latest of these, the reaction against the excesses of Dylan Thomas and his followers, had established traditionalism and ge…

1 minute read

New Republic, The - New Republic

a weekly magazine devoted to domestic and international current affairs, reviews of the arts, and commentary on a wide range of social and cultural topics. It was founded in New York in 1914 by Willard D. Straight, with Herbert D. Croly as editor. Croly was succeeded in 1930 by Bruce Bliven. The magazine subsequently came under the control of an editorial board. Malcolm Cowley, Robert Pinsky, and …

1 minute read

New Statesman, The - New Statesman, Nation, New Society, New Statesman and Society

a weekly magazine founded in 1913 to ?deal with all current political, social, religious, and intellectual questions?. Originally associated with the Fabian Society, it has remained a vehicle for views from the political left, while retaining its independence of restrictively doctrinaire affiliations. Early issues featured a serialization of ?What Is Socialism?? by Beatrice and Sidney Webb. G. B. …

1 minute read

New Verse - New Signatures, New Verse, Blast

a periodical described by Ian Hamilton as ?the toughest and most entertaining of all the little magazines?; it was founded in 1933 by Geoffrey Grigson, who remained editor until 1939. Grigson's enthusiasm for the work of W. H. Auden and his fellow poets of the early 1930s, to whom Michael Roberts's New Signatures anthology of 1932 had given a corporate identity, motivated him to establish New Vers…

1 minute read

New Writing - New Writing, New Verse, Folios of New Writing, Daylight, New Writing and Daylight, Penguin New Writing

a periodical founded in 1936 by John Lehmann. Although Lehmann stated in the first issue that New Writing ?is first and foremost interested in literature and is independent of any political party?, its opposition to fascism made it hospitable to writers well known for their socialist convictions; poetry by Stephen Spender, C. Day Lewis, and W. H. Auden appeared and early issues included prose by E…

1 minute read

New Yorker, The - New Yorker, Here at The New Yorker

a weekly magazine established in 1925 by Harold Ross, who remained its editor until his death in 1951, and the publisher Raoul Fleischman; James Thurber was managing editor in the publication's early years and contributed material throughout his career. The combination of scrupulously accurate reportage, urbanely humorous and satirical articles, lively reviewing, short stories, and poetry establis…

1 minute read

New York Review of Books, The - New York Times, Herald Tribune, Paris Review, London Review of Books

a fortnightly literary periodical founded on a provisional basis in 1963, when a printers' strike resulted in the suspension of New York's principal book-reviewing pages through the temporary closure of the New York Times and the Herald Tribune. It was favourably received and began regular publication under the continuing joint editorship of Robert B. Silvers, formerly a member of the editorial bo…

1 minute read

New York School of Poets - An Anthology of New York Poets, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

a name loosely applied to a number of poets working in New York between about 1950 and 1975. Two American cities have given their names to groups of poets, San Francisco and New York, and both in a somewhat ironic style. The poets of the San Francisco Renaissance mockingly adopted the name of one of their main sources of intellectual inspiration, although their activities hardly constituted a rena…

3 minute read

Ngugi wa Thiong'o, formerly known as James T. Ngugi Biography - (1938– ), formerly known as James T. Ngugi, Weep Not, Child, The River Between

Kenyan novelist, dramatist, and essayist, born in Limuru, Kenya, educated at Makerere University College and at the University of Leeds. Ngugi's experiences as a Kikuyu adolescent during Kenya's struggle for independence from white colonial domination inform his first two novels. Weep Not, Child (1964), set mainly during the Mau Mau Rebellion of the 1950s, was the first novel in English by an East…

2 minute read

B. P. Nichol (Barrie Phillip Nichol) Biography - (1944–1988), (Barrie Phillip Nichol), The Martyrology, Dada Lama, Two Novels, The Cosmic Chef, Still Water

Canadian writer, born in Vancouver, educated at the University of British Columbia. Nichol first achieved recognition for ?concrete? poems which express their thought through physical shape. All his work explores the way in which language operates to construct meaning, and his poetry frequently questions the premises on which verse has traditionally been based by breaking down barriers between the…

1 minute read

Grace Nichols Biography - (1950– ), I Is a Long-Memoried Woman, The Fat Black Woman's Poems

Guyanese poet, born in Georgetown, where she was educated at the University of Guyana. After working as a schoolteacher and journalist, she emigrated to Britain in 1977. I Is a Long-Memoried Woman (1983), her first collection of poetry, for which she received the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, formed a cycle of poems surveying the oppressed history of Caribbean women and celebrating their capacity for…

less than 1 minute read

Peter Nichols (Peter Richard Nichols) Biography - (1927– ), (Peter Richard Nichols), A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, The National Health

British playwright, born and educated in Bristol; he worked as an actor and a teacher before achieving success with his first stage play, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1967), a dark comedy about the pains and pressures of bringing up a severely disabled child. His subsequent work includes The National Health (1969), The Freeway (1974), and Born in the Gardens (1979), which respectively use a hosp…

1 minute read

Robert Nichols (Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols) Biography - (1893–1944), (Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols), Invocation, Ardours and Endurances, Aurelia

British poet, born at Manningtree, Essex, educated at Trinity College, Oxford. He was on active service on the Western Front from 1914 until he was invalided out after the Battle of the Somme in 1916. His responses to the war are contained in Invocation (1915) and Ardours and Endurances (1917), which established him as one of the most highly acclaimed younger poets of the day. ?The Assault?, his b…

1 minute read

Norman Nicholson (Norman Cornthwaite Nicholson) Biography - (1914–87), (Norman Cornthwaite Nicholson), Selected Poems, Five Rivers, Rock Face, The Pot Geranium, A Local Habitation

British poet, born in Millom, Cumberland, where he was educated at local schools and remained all his life. He was a schoolteacher for many years before becoming a full-time writer. Nicholson first attracted notice as a poet when his work appeared alongside poetry by J. C. Hall and Keith Douglas in Selected Poems (1943). Five Rivers (1944), his first independent collection, was followed by numerou…

1 minute read

Eilean Ni Chuilleanain Biography - (1942– ), Cyphers, Acts and Monuments, Site of Ambush, The Rose-Geranium, The Second Voyage

Irish poet, born in Cork, educated at University College, Cork, and at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. In 1966 she became a lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin, and was a founding editor of Cyphers, one of the city's leading literary periodicals. Acts and Monuments (1972), her first collection of poetry, was followed by subsequent volumes including Site of Ambush (1975), The Rose-Geranium (1981), The …

less than 1 minute read

Sir Harold Nicolson (Sir Harold George Nicolson) Biography - (1886–1968), (Sir Harold George Nicolson), Public Faces, Some People, Paul Verlaine, Byron, the Last Journey

British author, diplomat, and politician, born in Tehran where his father was serving with the British Legation, educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He held diplomatic postings in Europe and the Middle East from 1909 to 1929, drawing on his experiences of the diplomatic service in the satirical novel Public Faces (1932). During this period he produced Some People (1927), nine humorously fictional…

1 minute read

Lorine Niedecker Biography - (1903–70), Poetry, New Goose, My Friend Tree, North Central, Tenderness and Gristle, Blue Chicory

American poet, born at Fort Atkinson, near Madison, Wisconsin, the region in which she spent most of her life; educated at Beloit College. She worked for Madison University's WHA radio station and as a librarian until deteriorating eyesight led her to seek other employment, chiefly as a domestic assistant in a Madison hospital. She dated her development as a poet from the beginning of her contact …

1 minute read

Night and Day

V. Woolf's second novel and her most conventional in form (criticized by K. Mansfield for being ?a lie in the soul?), published in 1919. It is a four-sided love story which is at once comical, melancholy, and awkwardly formal. The tone is Jane Austen-like satire, with a Mozartian, operatic structure of quest and resolution, and a strong ingredient of Shakespearean comedy. There are four main, youn…

less than 1 minute read

Anaïs Nin Biography - (1903–77), D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study, émigrés, la groupe surrealiste, Early Diaries

American diarist, literary critic, and novelist, born near Paris, of a Spanish-Cuban father and a Danish-French mother. At the age of 11 she moved with her mother to New York. She trained as a psychoanalyst under Otto Rank, and practised briefly. The publication in Paris of her first book, D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study (1932), brought her into contact with Parisian artistic circles and ?…

1 minute read

Nineteen Eighty-Four - The Last Man in Europe

a novel by George Orwell, published in 1949. The Last Man in Europe was the working title of Orwell's most celebrated novel, which projects a totalitarian future from the austerities of the early Cold War. Orwell worked on the manuscript during a protracted stay on the remote Scottish island of Jura; he had none of the usual distractions of his editing, reviewing, and broadcasting routine and, as …

1 minute read

Lewis Nkosi Biography - (1936– ), Drum, New African, Home and Exile, The Transplanted Heart

South African essayist and novelist, born in Natal. After writing for Drum magazine and other publications, in 1960?1 he studied journalism at Harvard, but was prevented by the South African authorities from returning to his own country. Living in exile he has held various academic posts, and in London he was literary editor of New African. One of the foremost African literary and cultural critics…

1 minute read

Nobel Prize for Literature

Funded by the bequest of distinguished Swedish chemist Alfred B. Nobel (1833?96), the Nobel Prizes are awarded annually to persons for important contributions in chemistry, medicine, physiology, literature, and the promotion of peace. The Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to the author of the most significant work ?of an idealistic tendency?. …

4 minute read

No Man's Land - soi-disant

a play by Harold Pinter, first performed in 1975. The play mainly involves the relationship between the rich and reclusive alcoholic Hirst and the shabby soi-disant poet, Spooner, roles respectively played by Sir Ralph Richardson and Sir John Gielgud in the original production at the National Theatre, in London. Hirst brings Spooner home, having apparently met him on Hampstead Heath. He plies him …

1 minute read

Oodgeroo Noonuccal, traditional name-form adopted by Kath Walker Biography - (1920–93), traditional name-form adopted by Kath Walker, We Are Going

part-Aboriginal poet and writer, of the Noonuccal tribe of Stradbroke Island, near Brisbane. Formally educated only to primary level, she worked as a domestic servant from the age of 13, racist regulations barring her from the nursing profession. Her first volume of verse, We Are Going (1964), established both her talent and her committed stance and was followed by The Dawn Is at Hand (1966); thes…

less than 1 minute read

Marsha Norman Biography - (1947– ), Getting Out, Third and Oak, Circus Valentine, Holdup, 'night, Mother, Traveler in the Dark

American dramatist, born in Louisville, Kentucky, educated at the University of Louisville. Her first play, Getting Out (1977), was produced by the Actors' Theatre of Louisville where she became a playwright in residence. Third and Oak (two one-act plays) was produced there in 1978, as was Circus Valentine and a workshop production of Holdup, which had its full premi?re in San Francisco in 1983. N…

1 minute read

Frank Norris (Benjamin Franklin Norris) Biography - (1870–1902), (Benjamin Franklin Norris), Yvernelle: A Legend of Feudal France, Chronicles, McTeague, Chronicle

American novelist, born in Chicago, educated at the University of California at Berkeley, and at Harvard. He is among the important exponents of American literary naturalism at the end of the nineteenth century, whose number also included Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser. After a grand tour of Europe in 1887, Norris remained in Paris to study painting at Atelier Julien. His first book, written w…

2 minute read

Leslie Norris Biography - (1921–2006), Tongue of Beauty, Finding Gold, Islands off Maine, A Sea in the Desert

Welsh poet and short-story writer, born in Merthyr Tydfil, educated at the City of Coventry College and the University of Southampton. After lecturing at Bognor Regis College of Education, in 1973 he began teaching at American universities and became a professor at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, in 1985. His collections of poetry include Tongue of Beauty (1941), Finding Gold (1967), Island…

less than 1 minute read

North - North, Wintering Out, The Bog People

Seamus Heaney's fourth collection of poems, published in 1975. The book consists of two parts, the second of which addresses aspects of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in verse of conversational directness; ?Whatever You Say Say Nothing? forms an urgently topical expression of anger and frustration, while the ?Singing School? sequence deals with the sectarian conditioning of Heaney's upbringing a…

1 minute read

North American Review, The - Review

one of the most eminent of the American periodicals of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was edited from its inception in 1815 by William Tudor; his numerous successors included James Russell Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton, and Henry Adams. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Anthony Trollope were among the authors whose work was published. Originally a …

1 minute read

Nostromo - T. P.'s Weekly

a novel by Joseph Conrad, published in 1904 (serialized in T. P.'s Weekly, 1904) shortly after the secession of Panama from Colombia. Regarded by many critics as Conrad's masterpiece, the novel is set in the fictional South American republic of Costaguana. It traces the history of the town and province of Sulaco from the time of Spanish rule under the Conquistadores to the period of its secession …

1 minute read

Notes Toward A Supreme Fiction

a long poem by Wallace Stevens, first published in an edition of forty-six pages in 1942. Its three parts, ?It Must Be Abstract?, ?It Must Change?, and ?It Must Give Pleasure?, contain some of his richest and most lyrically fluid poetry. Like much of Stevens's most impressive earlier work, the poem meditates on the creative imagination's interpretations of reality in an era faced with the obsolesc…

1 minute read

Notes Towards the Definition of Culture - (1948), New English Weekly, Prospect for Christendom, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture

T. S. Eliot's best-known work of social criticism, which began with a series of articles entitled ?Notes Toward a Definition of Culture? in the New English Weekly in 1943; these were revised as ?Cultural Forces in the Human Order?, his essay in Prospect for Christendom (edited by M. B. Reckitt, 1945), and, with further revisions, formed ?The Three Senses of Culture?, the first chapter of Notes Tow…

1 minute read

Not I

a play by Samuel Beckett, first performed in 1973, a 20-minute monologue, highly unorthodox in form and character. All the audience sees are spotlit lips, whose owner is identified only as Mouth. She delivers what at first seems to be a wild, incoherent babble, but on closer inspection turns out to be a muddled account, told throughout in the third person, of a long, sad, and lonely life, surely h…

1 minute read

Now and Then - Now and Then, Then and Now

a periodical begun as a house magazine by the publishers Jonathan Cape in 1921, the year in which the company was formed. It contained reviews, articles on authorship and various aspects of the literary life, poetry, and occasional short stories, and was frequently illustrated with photographs and wood-cuts. Among the contributors to earlier issues were Hugh Walpole, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Sh…

1 minute read

Alden Nowlan Biography - (1933–83), The Rose and the Puritan, Various Persons Named Kevin O'Brien

Canadian poet, born in Windsor, Nova Scotia. One of Maritime Canada's most important poets, Nowlan found the distinctive voice of his early work in The Rose and the Puritan (1958), a collection of short, formally traditional lyrics, mainly focusing on an episode in the life of a New Brunswick small-town resident and culminating in some kind of ?moral? revelation. Much of this early poetry is conce…

1 minute read

Louis Nowra Biography - (1950– ), Albert Names Edward, Inner Voices, Visions, Sunrise, The Golden Age, Summer of the Aliens, Cosi

Australian playwright, born in Melbourne, educated at La Trobe University. An anti-naturalistic writer, he has attracted considerable attention for his structural skill, his emblematic effects, and his exploration of isolated individuals. Albert Names Edward (1976) deals with the manipulation of an amnesiac; Inner Voices (1977) concerns Ivan, heir to the Russian throne who has been kept prisoner s…

1 minute read

Alfred Noyes Biography - (1880–1958), The Loom of Years, The Flower of Japan, Drake: An English Epic

British poet, novelist, and critic, born in Wolverhampton, educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he was much influenced by Ernest de Selincourt. The Loom of Years (1902), his first collection of poems, established the reputation he consolidated with a succession of volumes, among them The Flower of Japan (1903) and Drake: An English Epic (two volumes, 1906, 1908). The last-named secured him a …

1 minute read

Robert Nozick Biography - (1938–2002), Anarchy, State, and Utopia, A Theory of Justice, Philosophical Explanations, a priori

American philosopher, born in Brooklyn, New York, educated at Columbia University and at Princeton, where he was an assistant professor until 1965. Before being appointed to a professorship at Harvard in 1969, he held several posts, including an associate professorship at Rockefeller University; in 1985 he became Harvard's Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy. Nozick's reputation was est…

1 minute read

A. D. Nuttall (Anthony David Nuttall) Biography - (1937– ), (Anthony David Nuttall), A Common Sky, Two Concepts of Allegory, A New Mimesis

British philosophically minded critic and professor at Oxford; he was born in Hereford, and educated at Merton College, Oxford. His A Common Sky (1974) explored the curious consequences, in philosophy and literature, of the restriction of what we think of as secure knowledge to what the senses tell us; above all the resulting isolation of the hesitant and suspicious consciousness. Writers from Ste…

1 minute read

Jeff Nuttall Biography - (1933–2004), Bomb Culture, Poems I Want To Forget, Journals, Sun Barbs, Selected Poems, Poems 1962–69

British poet and novelist, born in Clitheroe, Lancashire, educated at Hereford School of Art and Bath Academy of Art. He became Head of Fine Art at Liverpool Polytechnic in 1981. Nuttall was eminently involved with the underground poetry movement in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s and became its principal apologist with Bomb Culture (1968). His first substantial collection of poems, Poems I Want To…

less than 1 minute read

Robert Nye Biography - (1939– ), A Collection of Poems 1955–1989, Collected Poems, Scotsman, The Times, Doubtfire

British novelist and poet, born in London, educated in Surrey and Essex; he left school at 16. He began to publish his poems as early as 1961. A Collection of Poems 1955?1989 appeared in 1989, and Collected Poems in 1995. Nye was poetry editor of the Scotsman from 1967 and of The Times from 1971. His first novel, Doubtfire (1967), was followed by Tales I Told My Mother (1969), a collection of stor…

1 minute read

Barry Oakley Biography - (1931– ), A Wild Ass of a Man, A Salute to the Great McCarthy

Australian novelist and playwright, born in Melbourne, educated at the University of Melbourne. His three picaresque novels are A Wild Ass of a Man (1967), a satirical comedy about a luckless young man named Muldoon; A Salute to the Great McCarthy (1970), about a star football player, which was later filmed; and Let's Hear It for Prendergast (1970), an iconoclastic satire about a Melbourne poet. A…

1 minute read

Joyce Carol Oates Biography - (1938– ), By the North Gate, With Shuddering Fall, A Garden of Earthly Delights, Expensive People, Them

American novelist, playwright, short-story writer, and essayist, born in Lockport, New York, educated at Syracuse and Wisconsin Universities. Oates began her prolific literary career with By the North Gate (1963), a collection of short stories. Her first novel, With Shuddering Fall (1964), ushers in many of the concerns of her subsequent novels. Set, as is much of her work, in the fictional ?Eden …

2 minute read

Objective Correlative - Athenaeum, The Sacred Wood, Hamlet, excess, particular

a term introduced in the essay ?Hamlet? by T. S. Eliot, which appeared in the Athenaeum in 1919 and was subsequently collected in The Sacred Wood (1920). Eliot maintained that Hamlet is ?an artistic failure? because it is ?full of some stuff that the writer could not drag to light, contemplate, or manipulate into art?; the play is ?dominated by an emotion which is inexpressible, because it is in e…

1 minute read

Objectivist Poetry: - Poetry's, An ‘Objectivists’ Anthology, Collected Poems, 1921–1931

an influential movement in American verse of the early 1930s which stressed the importance of concrete detail and the spatial integrity of the poem; its practitioners avoided metaphorical devices as tending to diffuseness. Louis Zukofsky was the principal spokesman for the group, of which George Oppen, Charles Reznikoff, and Carl Rakosi were other leading members, and produced Poetry's ?Objectivis…

1 minute read

Patrick O'Brian Biography - (1914–2004), Master and Commander, Post Captain, H M Surprise, The Mauritius Command, Desolation Island

British historical novelist and biographer, born in Ireland; he is best known for his series of novels set during the Napoleonic wars, which chronicle the exploits of Captain ?Lucky? Jack Aubrey, a courageous and brilliant naval officer, and his friend and colleague, Stephen Maturin. The first of these books, Master and Commander (1970), describes the initial meeting between the two characters in …

1 minute read

Conor Cruise O'Brien Biography - (1917– ), Observer, The Bell, Maria Cross: Imaginative Patterns in a Group of Modern Catholic Writers

Irish literary critic and political commentator, born in Dublin, where he was educated at Trinity College. After joining the Irish Civil Service in 1942, he held numerous senior posts and became a special representative of the United Nations in 1961. From 1969 to 1977 he was a member of the Dail Eirann, becoming Minister for Posts in 1973, and was subsequently a member of the Senate. He has also h…

1 minute read

Edna O'Brien Biography - (1932– ), The Country Girls, The Lonely Girl, Girl with Green Eyes, Girls in Their Married Bliss

Irish novelist and short-story writer, born and brought up in the village of Tuamgraney, Co. Clare, the daughter of a farmer, educated at the Convent of Mercy in Loughrea, Co. Galway. At 16 she worked in a chemist's shop in Dublin and attended evening classes at the Pharmaceutical College. In 1959 she moved to London where she wrote her first novel. The Country Girls (1960) begins the bitter-sweet…

2 minute read

Flann O'Brien, the principal pseudonym of Brian O'Nolan, otherwise Brain O'Nuallain Biography - (1911–66), the principal pseudonym of Brian O'Nolan, otherwise Brain O'Nuallain

Irish novelist and humorist, born at Strabane in Co. Tyrone; from the age of 13 he grew up in Dublin, where he was educated at Blackrock College and University College. In 1935 he entered the Department of Local Government in Dublin, where he remained until his retirement through ill-health in 1953. At Swim-Two-Birds (1939), his highly unusual first novel, was favourably received. He was deeply di…

2 minute read

Kate O'Brien Biography - (1897–1974), Distinguished Villa, The Bridge, Without My Cloak, The Land of Spices, Mary Lavelle, That Lady

Irish novelist, born in Limerick, educated at University College, Dublin. Originally known as a playwright, with Distinguished Villa (1926) and The Bridge (1927), she found huge popularity with her first and in many respects weakest novel, Without My Cloak (1931). When depicting the conflict between religion (Catholicism) and the sensibility of the artist, her work is at its best. The Land of Spic…

1 minute read

Sean O'Brien Biography - (1952– ), A Rumoured City: New Poets from Hull, The Indoor Park, The Frighteners, Boundary Beach

British poet, born in London, educated at Cambridge, Birmingham, and Hull Universities. In 1989 he became Fellow of Creative Writing at the University of Dundee. Following the enthusiastic reception of his work when it appeared in Douglas Dunn's edition of A Rumoured City: New Poets from Hull (1982), he has produced several collections including The Indoor Park (1983: Somerset Maugham Award), The …

less than 1 minute read

Tim O'Brien (William Timothy O'Brien) Biography - (1946– ), (William Timothy O'Brien), Washington Post;

American novelist and journalist, born in Austin, Minnesota, educated at Malacaster College, Minnesota, and Harvard. O'Brien served with the US Army in Vietnam. Wounded and discharged in 1970, he subsequently became a reporter on the Washington Post; many of his journalistic pieces were collected in If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (1973; revised 1979). Written from the perspe…

1 minute read

Sean O'Casey (Sean John Casey O'Casey) Biography - (1880–1964), (Sean John Casey O'Casey), The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock

Irish playwright, born in Dublin, the son of Protestant parents; he was brought up in circumstances of great poverty, with eight of his twelve siblings failing to survive infancy. From the age of 14 he took a variety of menial jobs, ranging from caretaking to hod-carrying. He became politically active, joining the Gaelic League and the clandestine Irish Republican Brotherhood, then involving himse…

2 minute read

Flannery O'Connor Biography - (1925–64), Mystery and Manners, Wise Blood, The Violent Bear It Away

American novelist and short-story writer, born in Georgia, educated at the University of Iowa. Though she is now viewed as belonging firmly to the Southern tradition of American literature, O'Connor was a Roman Catholic, and the paradox of being a Catholic writer in one of the most fanatically Protestant societies in the world was tackled directly by her in letters and essays, including ?The Catho…

1 minute read

Frank O'connor, pseudonym of Michael Francis O'donovan Biography - (1903–66), pseudonym of Michael Francis O'donovan, Guests of the Nation, Irish Statesman

Irish short-story writer, critic, and novelist, born in Cork into a poor family. He left school at 12 and was largely self-educated, making good use of a spell of imprisonment in 1923 after he had taken the Republican side in the civil war. The Irish language was of early and lasting importance to him, and on his release he became a teacher of Irish. Subsequently he started a theatre group in Cork…

2 minute read