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Val Mulkerns Biography

(1925– ), The Bell, A Time Outworn, Peacock Cry, Antiquities, An Idle Woman, The Summerhouse



Irish novelist and short-story writer, born in Dublin, educated at the Dominican College, Dublin. She was an associate editor of The Bell from 1952 to 1954, and has worked as a journalist, reviewer, and lecturer. Her first novel, A Time Outworn (1952), a simple well-observed story of young love, was followed by Peacock Cry (1954), but it was not until the late 1970s that Mulkerns wrote with confidence and distinction. Her collection of connected short stories, Antiquities (1978), finally established her reputation as a significant Irish writer; the stories concern the history of a single family through which Mulkerns traces the decay of republicanism into a form of apolitical brutality. Mulkerns's other books include An Idle Woman (1980), The Summerhouse (1984), Very Like a Whale (1986), and A Friend of Don Juan (1988).



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Literature Reference: American Literature, English Literature, Classics & Modern FictionEncyclopedia of Literature: Mr Polly to New France