A dazzling start
From the Eblana cited by Claudius Ptolemy in his Treatise on Geography - and which some believe was the site of the future Irish capital - to the Dublin proclaimed Creative City of Literature by Unesco, there are two millennia during which the Vikings and the English succeeded each other, before independence was (self) proclaimed in 1919 (and gained in 1922). It is perhaps in this mixing or in this struggle that we find the explanation of the strong attachment that the Dubliners have to their city, which is felt so much in literature. Dublin does indeed inspire its writers, and when it is not the city that becomes their character, it is content - at least - to see them born, live or die. It is also home to Trinity College, which itself exhibits a priceless codex, the Book of Kells (9th century), a reminder that Ireland was the land of artist monks, just as it was the land of poet bards. Nevertheless, it was not until a few centuries later that Dublin witnessed the birth of its first writer of international stature. Indeed, if the name of Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) may not evoke anything, the name of his character - Gulliver - inhabits all imaginations. More secretly, it is also said that the writer was dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral... which did not prevent him from using pseudonyms to publish violent political pamphlets!
Another time, another style, the nineteenth century also saw the publication of a fiction with a worldwide scope: Dracula, by Bram Stoker (1847-1912). Following in his father's footsteps (and very serious scientific studies), Bram Stoker entered the world of work and eventually left his position as a civil servant to become the administrator of the Lyceum Theatre. In literature, his vampire was inspired by Carmilla, published by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu in 1872. Whether by chance or by destiny, it is amusing to note that a couple of Sheridan's friends had a son who would also follow in his footsteps: Oscar Wilde, who hardly needs any introduction. Impertinent, whimsical, irreverent, the adjectives never seem too strong to describe the Lord who excelled in writing The Portrait of Dorian Gray (1891), The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) or De Profundis (1897). Perhaps less well known on our side of the Celtic Sea, his younger brother George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) could nevertheless boast of having won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925, a distinction he shared with William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), winner in 1923. If the former made a career in the theater - and is discovered, in fact, mainly at L'Arche in French(Pièces plaisantes, Avertissement sur le mariage, Pygmalion, etc.), the latter put his pen to the service of poetry(Poèmes de jeunesse published by Verdier, Quarante-cinq Poèmes published by Gallimard), although he did not disdain the stage, he was one of the co-founders (with Lady Gregory) of the Abbey Theatre. The aging nineteenth century will keep its vigor with another playwright, John Millington Synge, whose Complete Theatre has been compiled by Les Solitaires intempestifs. Indeed, the first performance of his play The Baladin of the Western World, in 1907, set Dublin on fire..
The intimate mapping of Dublin
It was then that the capital really came into play, first in the work of John Casey (1880-1964), who preferred Seán Ó Cathasaigh (now Seán O'Casey) to his Christian name, thus marking his commitment. The trilogy dedicated to his hometown has remained famous, and not only because The Plough and the Stars (which followed The Shadow of a Maverick and Juno and the Peacock, published by L'Arche) also caused riots. In fact, O'Casey is above all the first to have portrayed characters from the working class suburbs, and his plays also evoked the great moments of Irish history, including, of course, the war for independence, which was so dear to his heart. But the one whose name is unquestionably intimately linked to Dublin is James Joyce, who gave his first cry there on February 2, 1882. Opaque but fascinating, his work pushes the limits of world literature, although it should not be confined to Ulysses, an experimental masterpiece published in Paris on his 40th birthday by the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, and a hallucinatory dive into the streets of the capital. More accessible, his collection of short stories Dublinois (which was also titled Gens de Dublin) is worth (re)reading, as is his text with a strong autobiographical accent, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. After Joyce, it seemed difficult to imagine that another writer could so shake up world literature, and yet in 1906 the man who would win the third Nobel Prize for Irish literature was born: Samuel Beckett. He grew up in Foxrock, an affluent suburb, but his happy childhood gave way to a latent depression that was sustained by the wars in which he became a resistance fighter. Here again, Beckett is not the man of only one text, even if the reputation of his play Waiting for Godot has largely survived and perhaps even surpassed it. However, he also invented himself in the novel (notably with his famous trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unspeakable) and in poetry(Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates). Absurd, desperate or funny, it is in any case worth mentioning that his work was written in two languages, English and French.
The XXth century opens on a genius whose fame will be difficult to compete with, but he continues to distill his talents. Thus, Dublin, for lack of seeing him born, hosts the funeral of the one who received in 1995 the fourth Nobel Prize for Literature: Seamus Heaney (1939-2013). The latter is undoubtedly and despite everything a more confidential poet in France, it is nevertheless possible to obtain La Lucarne or L'Étrange et le connu from Gallimard, in order to immerse oneself in his verses which allowed him to praise the beauty of nature as well as to deplore the sadness of certain political situations. The first part of the century also offers the discovery of two authors who called themselves "typically Irish", although the force of their autobiographical writings resonates universally. They are Brendan Behan (1923-1964) and Nuala O'Faolain (1940-2008). The former was censored (for obscenity) and the latter aroused compassion by not hiding anything of her alcoholic turpitude. Indeed, in Borstal Boy (published under the title Un peuple partisan by Gallimard), Behan will tell without embellishment the three years he will spend in reformatory as a teenager for having imported explosives for the IRA. Long banned, his work will finally be adapted into a genre to which he will also devote himself, the theater. O'Faolain, for her part, delivered her "accidental memoirs" in On s'est déjà vu quelque part? (translated by Sabine Wespiser) in which she mentioned her doubts, excesses and drifts, and met with immense success.
The contemporary era
The second half of the century, however, continued to be rich in creative activity. Roddy Doyle (b. 1958) continued to explore both style and language, writing plays, novels and screenplays in "Irish English". Under the guise of humor, sometimes irony, he is committed to tackling serious issues such as the delicate question of Irish identity. In French, his work can be found at Robert Laffont(Paddy Clarke ha ha ha, La Femme qui se cognait dans les portes, etc.). These are the same themes that challenge Dermot Bolger, born in 1959 in Finglas, a working-class suburb of Dublin. How to position oneself between modernity and the weight of tradition? His characters ask themselves this question, and many others, in his novels published by Joëlle Losfeld(Le Ruisseau de cristal, Ensemble séparés, Une arche de lumière). Between past and present, ghosts still haunt the pages of Anne Enright's Retrouvailles (Actes Sud), for which she was awarded the 2007 Man Booker Prize. The debate is on another level with Colum McCann, who pushes the boundaries by choosing his adopted home of New York City as the setting for And Let the World Go Crazy, for which he won the 2009 National Book Award. In Zoli, another of his great successes, he takes his inspiration from the Gypsies and sets his action in Europe, an international scope that he will take up again in Apeirogon, published by Belfond in 2020 (and by 10-18 in 2021), when he will question the pains that bring together a Palestinian and an Israeli. In another genre, that of the detective novel, John Connolly also questions the contemporary world, notably through his series featuring the private detective Charlie Parker. The same process is used by Emma Donogue when she sets some of her works in past centuries(Frog Music published by Stock, Le Pavillon des combattantes published by Presses de la Cité), a way of questioning the current place of women in society, a problem that she confronts more brutally in the very remarkable Room (Le Livre de poche), inspired by a harrowing news story.
The new generation proves once again that Irish literature can innovate. Derek Landy, who was born in Dublin in 1974, is causing a sensation with his novels for young people: his Skully Fourbery series, whose hero is a "skeleton detective", is published by Gallimard Jeunesse. As for Cecelia Ahern, she broke all the records with a first novel with a deceptively light tone, PS: I love you, adapted for the cinema and available from J'ai Lu. Finally, the very young Sally Rooney, born in 1991, is certainly not a native of Dublin, but yet Conversation between friends, which she published in 2017 (in 2009 in French at L'Olivier), offers an extremely precise insight into the lives of Dubliners today. Her style, equally sharp and truly original, has earned her much acclaim. Never disappointing, Irish writers have definitely more than one trick up their sleeve!
