Frank O'Connor

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin BooksKnown as Ireland’s Chekhov, Frank O’Connor was a master of the modern short story, with an eye for capturing the spaces between our selves and our surroundings. The Genius brings together some of his very best stories, often told from the perspective of young children and forming a revealing portrait of coming of age in postwar Ireland. Humorous and poignant in equal parts, these stories are a lesson in craft from a celebrated, prolific author.

Frank O’Connor was one of the twentieth century’s greatest short story writers, and one of Ireland’s greatest authors. Lilliput Press are now delighted to continue our publishing of O’Connor’s writing by bringing his seminal work on the art of the short story back into print. The Lonely Voice is the definitive work of Irish non-fiction on the art of writing short fiction, and has long been held up as one of the greatest works in global literature on the short form. We are delighted to bring The Lonely Voice back into print with a brand new introduction by Kevin Barry, internationally recognised as one of Ireland’s greatests short story writers, whose work - like O’Connor’s before him - appears frequently in the New Yorker. Barry engages and parrys with O’Connor’s writing, bringing about a meeting of great Irish short story writers from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and bringing this foundational piece of Irish writing to a new generation. The ideal companion to works such as George Saunders A Swim in a Pond in the Rain or John Yorke’s Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why we Tell Them.

While Frank O’Connor was known primarily as one of Ireland’s 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, O’Connor published 121 translations that give voice to the full range of this centuries-old tradition. Collected here in full for the first time, O’Connor’s 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 O’Rourke’s wife torn between loyalty to her husband and a rising desire for her seducer. All these voices haunted O’Connor 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 O’Connor started from. O’Connor’s translations sprang from a compulsive desire to breathe life into Ireland’s 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 O’Connor’s profound love of his country’s language and its rich, literary subsoil – ‘a literature of which no Irishman need feel ashamed’, he once said – these voices from Ireland’s 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.

Not Quite Poetry is a book of prose, structured poetry and essays describing quantum science, random thoughts on life, friendships and art. Lastly, the words reflect upon a life without the facility of speech taken for granted by most of us.

Sinisteria Begins describes in detail the slow development, over the course of several years, of a large and complex sculptural installation located on the grounds of the Charles E. Burchfield Nature and Art Center in West Seneca, New York. Comprised of hundreds of dead, painted tree branches, the work covers and engulfs a hollow, fourteen-foot-tall metal sculpture. This unique and inviting artificial environment exists in harmony with its natural surroundings, while at the same time referencing invasive species, emotional trauma and even string theory.

Re-issued with an introduction by Neil Jordan, 'The Big Fellow' is the 1937 biography of the famed Irish leader Michael Collins by acclaimed author Frank O'Connor. It is an uncompromising but humane study of Collins, whose stature and genius O’Connor recognised. A masterly, evocative portrait of one of Ireland’s most charismatic figures, 'The Big Fellow' covers the period of Collins' life from the Easter Rising in 1916 to his death in 1922 during the Irish Civil War. The author, having served with the Anti-Treaty IRA during the Irish Civil War, wrote 'The Big Fellow' as a form of reparation over the guilt he felt with regards to taking up arms against his fellow Irishmen and Collins' untimely death. Liam Neeson has said that he found the book of great assistance when preparing for the role of Collins in the 1996 film directed by Neil Jordan.

Suit up and deploy into the electrifying universe of Halo(R) with this original comics anthology from Dark Horse Praise for Halo: Escalation (previous Dark Horse comics series): "This series has been a must-read for all Halo fans."--Gaming Canon"This comic is a successful comic book adaptation, not just a comic inspired by the games."--Adventures In Poor Taste"Writer Duffy Boudreau seems to have a knack for writing stories that are fast paced and entertaining."--We The Nerdy

The contents have been intriguingly divided into eight narrative threads that influenced and informed O'Connor's oeuvre. War includes the famous 'Guests of the Nation', set during the Irish War of Independence; Childhood draws on autobiographical writings to present a revealing picture of the author as a boy, the only child of an alcoholic father and doting mother; Writers bears witness to his literary debt to Yeats and Joyce. The stories in Lonely Voices movingly demonstrate O'Connor's theory that in this genre can be achieved 'something we do not often find in the novel - an intense awareness of human loneliness'; yet they are counterparted by his wonderfully polyphonic tales of family, friendship and rivalry in Better Quarrelling. In Ireland come poems, stories and articles inspired by the native land he loved but never sentimentalized, while from Abroad the writer in exile discourses upon universally relevant themes of emigration, hardship, absence and return. Finally, Last Things contains O'Connor's thoughts on religion, the church, the soul and its destiny, but remains above all a celebration of humanity 'who for me represented all I should ever know of God'.

The most generous one-volume collection ever published of short stories, autobiographical writings, poetry, and essays by the writer Yeats called "Ireland's Chekhov." Selected and arranged thematically by Julian Barnes, the rich mix of writings in The Best of Frank O'Connor starts off with his most famous short story, "Guests of the Nation," set during the Irish War of Independence; chronicles his childhood with an alcoholic father and protective mother; and traces his literary influences in brilliant essays on Joyce and Yeats. O'Connor's wonderfully polyphonic tales of family, friendship, and rivalry are set beside those that bring to life forgotten souls on the fringes of society. O'Connor's writings about Ireland vividly evoke the land he called home, while other stories probe the hardships and rewards of Irish emigration. Finally, we see O'Connor grappling, in both fiction and memoir, with the largest questions of religion and belief. The Best of Frank O'Connor is a literary monument to a truly great writer.

"Hergelaufene und Heruntergekommene, Säufer und Kirchgänger, Pfarrer, Mädchen, Matrosen und Mechaniker, kurz, das 'wunderbare katholische Volk' der irischen Stadt Cork wird von dem Überzeugungs-Iren O'Connor porträtiert: mit Ironie, Spott und Bizarrerie. Aber erst Mitleid und Anteilnahme an den Schicksalen seiner Helden machen aus dem guten Autor Frank O'Connor, aus dem Verächter der Pointe, dem Virtuosen der Andeutung, einen bedeutenden Dichter."

The story of the title deals with a little boy named Larry and his feelings towards his father. When his father returns home from World War II, Larry is resentful and jealous of losing his mother's undivided attention, and finds himself in a constant struggle to win back her affections.

Devised with the help of expert examiners and teachers, an easy-to-use literature study guide which aims to provide students with a better understanding and appreciation of the text. Also of interest to the general reader.

In this memoir, Frank O'Connor recreates his years as a young writer in 1920s Dublin, following his release from the internment camp where he had been imprisoned as an Irish revolutionary. This book begins where O'Connor's previous memoir, ""An Only Child"", left off.

The story of Frank O'Connor is that of a shy child from a Cork slum who becomes aware that there is something beyond the confines of his life and the lives around him, something grander. And with resolve and labor, he makes his way toward it. From his childhood to the time of his release from imprisonment as a revolutionary, O 'Connor conveys the moral fortune and the tragic elements of life, that sparked his storytelling—a life he describes as a "celebration of those who for me represented all I should ever know of God."

Award-winning edition of this outstanding translation of Brian Merriman's eighteenth-century erotic masterpiece. Translated by Frank O'Connor Illustrations by Brian Bourke.