John McGahern

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John McGahern bigraphy, stories - Writer

John McGahern : biography

12 November 1934 – 30 March 2006

John McGahern (12 November 1934 – 30 March 2006) is regarded as one of the most important Irish writers of the latter half of the twentieth century.

Known for the intrinsic and precise dissection of Irish life found in works such as The Barracks, The Dark and Amongst Women, The Observer hailed him as "the greatest living Irish novelist" before his death in 2006.

Other writing

McGahern is also considered a master of the Irish tradition of the short story. Several collections were published as well as Love of the World, a collection of non-fiction essays. His autobiography, Memoir (All Will be Well: a Memoir in the US), was published in 2005 a year before his death.

His work has influenced a younger generation of writers, such as Colm Tóibín. Some of his works have been translated into Japanese and other languages.

McGahern is generally thought to have exhausted the tradition of rural Irish modernism, although many younger writers continue to copy his detached and knowing style.

McGahern was a member of the Irish Arts honorary organization Aosdána and won many other awards (including the Irish-American Foundation Award, the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, and the Prix Etranger Ecureuil). He taught at universities in Ireland, England, the United States and Canada. In 1991, he received an honorary doctorate of Trinity College, Dublin. He was also a farmer, although he liked to joke that it was the writing that kept the farm (rather than the farming revenue allowing him to write)!

In 1987, An Phoblacht put him on a blacklist of British sympathisers after the airing of The Rockingham Shoot.

List of works

Novels
  • The Barracks (1963) AE Memorial Award, McCauley Fellowship.
  • The Dark (1965)
  • The Leavetaking (1975)
  • The Pornographer (1979)
  • Amongst Women (1990), Irish Times/Aer Lingus Literary Award (1991), GPA Award (1992), nominated for the Booker Prize (1990).
  • That They May Face the Rising Sun (2001), Irish Novel of the Year (2003), nominated for the IMPAC Award. Published in the USA under the title By the Lake (2002)
Non-fiction
  • Memoir (2005). Published in the U.S.A. in 2006 under the title All Will Be Well.
  • Love of the World (2009) Collected non-fiction and essays.
Short story collections
  • Nightlines (1970)
  • Getting Through (1978)
  • High Ground (1985)
  • The Collected Stories (1992), includes the three previous volumes of short stories (some of the stories appear in a slightly different form) and two additional stories – ‘The Creamery Manager’ and ‘The Country Funeral’. The former first appeared in Krina (1989).
  • Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories (2006) contains several stories collected in The Collected Stories, here revised by McGahern for the last time. Again two new stories, ‘Creatures of the Earth’ and ‘Love of the World’, are included.
Drama
  • Sinclair (1971) (radio)
  • Swallows (1975) (television)
  • The Rockingham Shoot (1987) (television)
  • The Power of Darkness (1991) (theatre)
Films

Amongst Women was filmed as a television mini-series in 1998, directed by Tom Cairns, and starring Tony Doyle as Moran.

One of McGahern’s best-known short stories, Korea, was made into a feature film of the same name directed by Cathal Black and produced by Darryl Collins in 1995. In 1996 Korea won the Asta Nielsen Best Film Award at the Copenhagen Film Festival and was runner-up for the Audience Prize at the Seattle Film Festival.

Novels

McGahern’s six novels follow his own life experiences to a certain extent. Reading his autobiography, All Will Be Well: a Memoir, proves the large autobiographical content in of his novels and short stories.