''Look Back to Look Forward'': Frank O''Connor''s Complete Translations from the Irish | Agenda Bookshop Skip to content
Selected Colleen Hoover Books at €9.99c | In-store & Online
Selected Colleen Hoover Books at €9.99c | In-store & Online
A01=Frank O'Connor
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Frank O'Connor
automatic-update
B01=Gregory A. Schirmer
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=CFP
Category=DCQ
Category=DSC
COP=Ireland
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
softlaunch

''Look Back to Look Forward'': Frank O''Connor''s Complete Translations from the Irish

English

By (author): Frank O'Connor

While Frank OConnor was known primarily as one of Irelands finest short-story writers, he was also an accomplished translator. In the long line of Irish writers given to translating poems in Irish into poems written in English a tradition stretching back at least as far as Jonathan Swift he stands out above all the rest.

Between the mid-1920s and the mid-1960s, OConnor published 121 translations that give voice to the full range of this centuries-old tradition. Collected here in full for the first time, OConnors work shows an uncanny aptitude for carrying over into English verse many of the riches to be found in the originals the ancient voice of the Hag of Beare lamenting her decline into old age; the voices of the early monks describing the Irish landscape, Irish weather, their religious faith, and, in at least one instance, their cat; the voice of Hugh ORourkes wife torn between loyalty to her husband and a rising desire for her seducer. All these voices haunted OConnor throughout his career, whatever else he was doing. The collection includes the Irish-language sources for all 121 translations along with literal translations, enabling the reader to see what OConnor started from.

OConnors translations sprang from a compulsive desire to breathe life into Irelands past, to look back to look forward, as he once put it; for him the Irish-language tradition was not for scholars and archives alone, but formed a living body of work vitally relevant to an Ireland that seemed puzzlingly indifferent to it.

Thanks to OConnors profound love of his countrys language and its rich, literary subsoil a literature of which no Irishman need feel ashamed, he once said these voices from Irelands past can still be heard. Strikingly modern in tone, they conjoin flesh and spirit, the sacred and the secular, in a way that speaks to humankind.

See more
Current price €38.24
Original price €44.99
Save 15%
A01=Frank O'ConnorAge Group_UncategorizedAuthor_Frank O'Connorautomatic-updateB01=Gregory A. SchirmerCategory1=Non-FictionCategory=CFPCategory=DCQCategory=DSCCOP=IrelandDelivery_Delivery within 10-20 working daysLanguage_EnglishPA=AvailablePrice_€20 to €50PS=Activesoftlaunch
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
Product Details
  • Weight: 500g
  • Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
  • Publication Date: 13 Apr 2023
  • Publisher: The Lilliput Press Ltd
  • Publication City/Country: Ireland
  • Language: English
  • ISBN13: 9781843518365

About Frank O'Connor

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Frank OConnor (190366) was an Irish writer of extraordinary versatility and fecundity best known for his short stories and memoirs. The Frank OConnor International Short Story Award is named in his honour. Born and raised in Cork in 1918 OConnor joined the First Brigade of the Irish Republican Army and served in combat during the Irish War of Independence. He was befriended by George William Russell (Æ) Yeats Lennox Robinson F. R. Higgins and Augusta Gregory and from 1937 to 1939 became managing director of the Abbey Theatre. In 1950 he accepted invitations to teach at Stanford and Harvard in the United States of America where his short stories were published to acclaim in The New Yorker. ABOUT THE EDITOR Gregory A. Schirmer has written books on Austin Clarke and William Trevor and Out of What Began: A History of Irish Poetry in English (Cornell University Press 1998). He edited After the Irish: An Anthology of Poetic Translation (Cork University Press 2009) and is author of The Midnight Court: Eleven Versions of Merriman (Lilliput Press 2015). He lives in west Cork with his wife the fiction writer Jane Mullen.

Customer Reviews

Be the first to write a review
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue we'll assume that you are understand this. Learn more
Accept