Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney

(Paperback, Main)

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Widely regarded as the finest poet of his generation, Seamus Heaney is the subject of numerous critical studies; but no book-length portrait has appeared until now. Through his own lively and eloquent reminiscences, Stepping Stones retraces the poet's steps from his early works, through to his receipt of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature and his post-Nobel life. It is supplemented with a large number of photographs, many from the Heaney family album and published here for the first time. In response to firm but subtle questioning from Dennis O'Driscoll, Seamus Heaney sheds a personal light on his work (poems, essays, translations, plays) and on the artistic and ethical challenges he faced, providing an original, diverting and absorbing store of reflections, opinions and recollections.

Reviews

Praise for "Stepping Stones"""

This really is a remarkable book. There isnt a dull, vapid or useless sentence in it; its about what it is to be human, as much as it is about what it is to be a poet. Nicholas Lezard, "The Guardian"

["Stepping Stones"] is a Heaney word horde that will not be surpassed for some time . . . [It] will be seized on by students of the work as well as the common reader . . . [Heaney] is intensely present within these pagesstill surprising, still defying the merciless landscapes with generosity, courage and joy. Bel Mooney, "The Times "(London)

[An] important book-length interview, designed to serve in lieu of a memoir . . . Dennis ODriscoll [is] an excellent poet and critic, and a deeply informed and probing interviewer of his longtime friend. Adam Kirsch, "The New Republic"

"Stepping Stones "succeeds on many levels, and ODriscoll

Author Bio

Dennis O'Driscoll's previous publications include New and Selected Poems (2004), a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation, and Reality Check (2007). He is editor of The Bloodaxe Book of Poetry Quotations (2006), author of a collection of essays and reviews, Troubled Thoughts, Majestic Dreams (2001), and a contributor to The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney (2008). He works as a civil servant in Dublin.