Description: This book offers the first comprehensive survey of writing by women in Ireland from the seventeenth century to the present day. It covers literature in all genres, including poetry, drama, and fiction, as well as life-writing and unpublished writing, and addresses work in both English and Irish. The chapters are authored by leading experts in their field, giving readers an introduction to cutting edge research on each period and topic. Survey chapters give an essential historical overview, and are complemented by a focus on selected topics such as the short story, and key figures whose relationship to the narrative of Irish literary history is analysed and reconsidered. Demonstrating the pioneering achievements of a huge number of many hitherto neglected writers, A History of Modern Irish Women's Literature makes a critical intervention in Irish literary history.
Brief description: Heather Ingman is Visiting Research Fellow in the Centre for Gender and Women's Studies in Trinity College Dublin where she was previously Adjunct Professor in the School of English, teaching and researching in modernist women's fiction, the short story and Irish women's writing. Her publications include Irish Women's Fiction from Edgeworth to Enright (2013), A History of the Irish Short Story (Cambridge, 2009), Twentieth-Century Fiction by Irish Women: Nation and Gender (2007), Women's Fiction Between the Wars: Mothers, Daughters and Writing (1998). She has chapters in recent edited collections on Mary Lavin, Virginia Woolf, and Elizabeth Bowen. She is currently researching ageing in Irish writing.
Review Quotes: 'If you thought women's writing in Ireland began with Maria Edgeworth and took a prolonged break until Maeve Binchy chanced along, you're about to go on a voyage of discovery. This important book is billed as the first comprehensive survey of writing by women in Ireland and runs from the 17th century to the present day ...' Martina Devlin, Irish Independent