"The first meaning of 'the state of Ireland' is that it's a place where stories are still told, deliciously and by masters of the art, of whom Benedict Kiely is one, perhaps the foremost."--Guy Davenport, New York Times Book Review This treasure chest of a book contains the complete short stories and novellas by Benedict Kiely's, one of the great storytellers of our time and any nation. This edition contains a new introduction by the author, as well as his afterword to the acclaimed novella, Proxopera.

Do the Irish have, in relation to anybody else, any special capacity for the short story?'. Collecting short stories that cover many generations and moods of Irish writing, this title answers the question. It features the stories that range from Lady Gregory's retelling of an ancient love story through to the prolific William Trevor.

Selected Storiesgathers together some of the best examples of Benedict Kiely's work - a true and gifted man of letters. Edited by Ben Forkner, founder ofThe Journal of the Short Story. From'Soldier, Red Soldier' and 'A Ball of Malt and Madame Butterfly' to 'A Letter to Peachtree', these stories sing in the unforgettable voice of an Irish master who inspired, and will continue to inspire, generations of readers and writers alike. These stories have a great deal taken from Ben's own experiences both abroad and at home in Ireland. Kiely captures various moments in Irish and American culture, many heavily influenced by his time as a lecturer in Georgia, writer-in-residence in Virginia, and as a reporter for theIrish Press.

1973. Mervyn Kavanagh travels home to the small Irish town of Carmincross for the wedding of his favourite niece. As he nears the town, Mervyn is haunted by dark thoughts of bombs, rubber bullets, political murder and terrorism. Somewhere, it seems, the past and present are bound to collide.

This miracle of autobiography and prison literature begins: "Friday, in the evening, the landlady shouted up the stairs: 'Oh God, oh Jesus, oh Sacred Heart, Boy, there's two gentlemen here to see you.' I knew by the screeches of her that the gentlemen were not calling to inquire after my health . . . I grabbed my suitcase, containing Pot. Chlor., Sulph Ac, gelignite, detonators, electrical and ignition, and the rest of my Sinn Fein conjurer's outfit, and carried it to the window . . ." The men were, of course, the police, and seventeen-year-old Behan. He spent three years as a prisoner in England, primarily in Borstal (reform school), and was then expelled to his homeland, a changed but hardly defeated rebel. Once banned in the Irish Republic, Borstal Boy is both a riveting self-portrait and a clear look into the problems, passions, and heartbreak of Ireland.

"A condemnation of the interference by violent men in the lives of ordinary people" (Special Collections copy dust jacket).

Reverse Tradition invites the reader of postmodern fiction to travel back to the nineteenth-century novel without pretending to let go of contemporary anxieties and expectations. What happens to the reader of Beckett when he or she returns to Melville? Or to the enthusiast of Toni Morrison who rereads Charlotte Bronte? While Robert Kiely does not claim that all fictions begin to look alike, he finds unexpected and illuminating pleasures in examining a variety of ways in which new texts reflect on old. In this engaging book, Kiely not only juxtaposes familiar authors in unfamiliar ways; he proposes a countertradition of intertextuality and a way to release the genie of postmodernism from the bottleneck of the late twentieth century. Placing the reader's response at the crux, he offers arresting new readings by pairing, among others, Jorge Luis Borges with Mark Twain, and Maxine Hong Kingston with George Eliot. In the process, he tests and challenges common assumptions about transparency in nineteenth-century realism and a historical opacity in early and late postmodernism.

Margaret Mead Award finalist! Nan Donohoe was an Irish Travelling woman, one of Ireland’s indigenous gypsies or “tinkers.” Traditionally, they traveled the countryside making and repairing tinware, sweeping chimneys, selling small household wares, and doing odd-job work. Over time, they came to live on the roadside in trailers and in government-built camps. Told largely in her own voice, Nan’s saga begins in 1919 with her birth in a tent in the Irish Midlands; it follows her life in Ireland and England, in countryside and city slums, through adversity and adventure. Gmelch brings to her task not only the resources of anthropology, but the skill of a sensitive writer and a warmth that allows her to see Nan as a person, not a subject. What emerges is a human story, filled with cruelty and compassion, sorrow and humor, bad luck and good.

"This book offers a ... meditation on the lives of the saints and the images of them painted by Renaissance artists in Italy. Robert Kiely, a ... scholar of modernist literature and a historian and critic ... has a keen eye and uncanny ability to capture details of significance and to prompt the reader to look again and to see with fresh eyes that the lives of saints and the Renaissance depictions of them are anything but dull, uniform, or narrowly orthodox. His ... book treats saints seriously as human religious figures (not icons of perfection), brought to life by great Italian paintings in dialogue with scripture, legend, and poetry. ... Offering a rare combination of insight into religion, literature, and art, this ... volume should be by your side whenever you pick up a classic text, look at a Renaissance painting, or spend a few moments in private meditation or prayer.