A highlight this week is the first publication of Dermot Bolger’s epic poem, Night in the House on Dawson Street. This poem was commissioned by Dublin City Council to mark the 300th anniversary of the purchase of the Mansion House as official residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin. It will receive its first public reading on Saturday, June 6th, by Barry McGovern and Geraldine Plunkett, as the centrepiece of a celebratory evening at the Mansion House.
In non-fiction, John O’Conor reviews Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph.
Catriona Crowe reviews A City in Civil War: Dublin 1921-4 by Padraig Yeates.
Enda Delaney reviews The Best are Leaving: Emigration and Post-War Irish Culture by Clair Wills.
Jan-Werner Müller reviews When the Facts Change by Tony Judt.
In fiction, Eileen Battersby reviews The Festival of Insignificance by Milan Kundera.
Sarah Gilmartin reviews Eggshells by Caitriona Lally.
Declan Burke’s crime writing column looks at Stephen King’s Finders Keepers; Disclaimer by former BBC arts documentary director Renee Knight; Jarlath Gregory’s The Organised Criminal; The Drowned Boy, the 11th novel in Norwegian author Karin Fossum’s Inspector Sejer series; and The Lady from Zagreb, Philip Kerr’s 10th Bernie Gunther offering.
