Dublin is the fourth UNESCO City of Literature.
No less than four Nobel Prizes for Literature have been awarded to writers associated with the city: George Bernard Shaw, W.B. Yeats, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney. Other illustrious Dublin writers of international repute include Jonathan Swift, Cardinal Newman, Oscar Wilde, Sean O’Casey, Denis Johnston, Flann O’Brien, Brendan Behan and Jennifer Johnston,
Dublin is home to the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award which was won by Dublin-based writer Colm Tóibín in 2006. Many other Dublin writers, in all genres of literature, enjoy enormous international popularity with their works translated into a host of languages: playwrights Dermot Bolger, Frank McGuinness, Conor McPherson, Marina Carr and Martin McDonagh; poets Harry Clifton (Ireland Professor of Poetry), Eavan Boland, Paula Meehan, Peter Sirr, Pat Boran, Michael O’Loughlin, Paul Durcan and others too numerous to list. Excelling in the genre of popular fiction are novelists Maeve Binchy, John Connolly, Marian Keyes, Cathy Kelly, Patricia Scanlan and Cecilia Ahern, while literary fiction is the preserve of highly successful writers such as Sebastian Barry, Colum McCann, Roddy Doyle, Anne Enright, Joseph O’Connor, Hugo Hamilton, John Banville and Claire Kilroy.
Oscar Wilde in Stephen's Green (I think it looks like Hugh Grant) across from his house.
James Joyce Museum
In more recent times, Dublin-based writers continue to receive international acclaim in fiction, drama and poetry. The Man Booker Prize has been conferred on Iris Murdoch, Roddy Doyle, John Banville and Anne Enright, and in 2009 Sebastian Barry received the Costa Book of the Year Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. In 2009, Colum McCann won the U.S. National Book Award for his novel 'Let The Great World Spin'. The novelist Anne Enright, has claimed that ‘In other towns, clever people go out and make money. In Dublin, clever people go home and write their books.’
Enter into the world of James Joyce's novel, Ulysses, by following its characters as they walk the streets of Dublin on June 16, 1904.
I had a friend who did the writers walking tour when he was in Ireland. He quite enjoyed it-
ReplyDeleteI love that first picture! I want a picture with him :)
ReplyDeleteWow, what a collection of writer's history. I've always been a big Oscar Wilde fan...love the statue! Thanks for sharing it, Jackie!
ReplyDeleteI can see the Hugh Grant resemblance. I think it's the hair...
ReplyDeleteIt was fun how much Dublin, and Ireland in general, appreciated their writers.
ReplyDeleteI loved the Oscar Wilde statue, too, and put him on my blog last year when we got home from Ireland: http://www.joyweesemoll.com/2012/09/11/wordless-wednesday-oscar-wilde/
I hope to make it to Ireland one day!
ReplyDeleteI went to Dublin quite a few years ago, but some how ended up in the place they brew guinness.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fantastic post! I've been to Dublin and Melbourne, and one of my life ambitions is to get to all the UNESCO Cities of Literature- there were five I think last time I checked. I loved Dublin so much. The two parks in the city centre were both so beautiful- although I must admit I really didn't like that state of Oscar, I found it disturbing and disrespectful. I did a version of a walking tour from my lonely planet but didn't find that Ulysses plaque. I tried to do a Ulysses tour as we were accidentally there on Blooms Day but I went to the wrong tourist office and missed it.....
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ReplyDeleteGreat photos!!
Here is my snapshot post
Great connection with the writer's in ;the city. Oscar Wilde looks awkward, What's with the one foot just sticking up in the air? That one phrase from Ulysses made my eyes glaze over.
ReplyDeleteDon't you think Twitter was made for people like Oscar Wilde with their bon mots?
Here's Mine