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Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s work has always chimed with me. Her 1999 novel, The Dancers Dancing, shortlisted for the Orange Prize, is an overlooked gem. Put simply, the novel is about the Irish college experience, once a formative rite of passage, but remarkably ignored in Irish fiction. Set in 1972 during the Troubles, the novel touches on the big questions of personal and national identity, the fate of the Irish language, the urban/rural divide, as well as being a coming-of-age novel about Orla, a 14-year-old Dubliner, desperate to fit in. The episodic structure of the novel, the wry observations of the narrator, and the lovely deft rendering of both languages – Irish and English – are trademarks of Ní Dhuibhne’s style. This is regional literature at its best – specific to its place but universal in its themes.
Ní Dhuibhne's short story collections – The Inland Ice (1997), The Pale Gold of Alaska (2000) and The Shelter of Neighbours (2012) – are delightful in the same way. They range from ancient Ireland to present-day Scandinavia, they are innovative in form and deceptively playful in tone, but always serious in intent; I think of Éilís Ní Dhuibhne as our Alice Munro.
Other favourites: Edna O'Brien and Maeve Brennan
I include a quote not from Eilis’s work but something she opted to have inscribed on her PEN 2015 award; it fits her own work to a T.
“Tell all the truth but tell it slant” – Emily Dickinson.
Mary Morrissy is a novelist and short story writer. Her most recent novel, The Rising of Bella Casey, is nominated for the Dublin Impac Award 2015. She teaches creative writing at UCC.
