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This volume is a critical introduction to the poetry of Irish writer Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Writing poetry exclusively in Irish but allowing and overseeing translations of her work into several languages, primarily English, Ní Dhomhnaill is the first Irish-language poet to gain an international following. She is also a pioneer in fostering a renewed relationship between the two languages of Ireland's literary traditions. Ní Dhomhnaill is unflinching in her interventions into problematic social, linguistic and even theoretical arenas, and is well known for her brutal parodies, ribald sexual scenarios and persistent debunking and revising of religious, political and mythological imagery. Her primary thematic concerns demonstrate her dedication to critiquing and ultimately changing dominant discourses so that they account for the presence and contributions of women writers. This volume explores the fraught issues of translating and contextualizing Ní Dhomhnaill's oeuvre, her use and revisions of Irish myth, folklore and political and religious iconography, her re-imagining of the mother in culture and religious ideology, and the devices of death, silence and psychoanalytic discourse in her mermaid cycle and other poems. The book hails Ní Dhomhnaill, who has not hitherto received a great deal of critical attention in English, as a major figure in world literature.
About the author
Cary A. Shay holds degrees in Classical Studies, Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama and English Literature from universities in the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom. She completed her PhD at the University of Kent. Her research interests include modern poetry, Anglo-Irish and Irish-language literature, psychoanalytic theory, and feminism and psychoanalysis.
Report
«Throughout the book, Shay's close reading of Ní Dhomhnaill's work is both clear and insightful. Her careful research provides a deeper understanding and appreciation of the rich world of Ní Dhomhnaill's aesthetic vision. Ní Dhomhnaill's unique development of the tradition of Irish language poetry and her creative assimilation of Irish oral culture have made her a major figure in contemporary poetry, and the first Irish language poet to gain an international following. Her work deserves more scholarly attention, and Of Mermaids and Others is a laudable first step in that direction.»
(Adrienne Leavy, Reading Ireland Vol. 4 Issue 1 2018)
