Under the Rose: Selected Stories

(Paperback, Main)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Julia O'Faolain is one of the most important Irish writers of the past half century. Her short stories are masterpieces of that demanding fictional form. Set in Italy, France, her native Ireland or the USA, they unpick the casual brutalities of a patriarchal society or the delusions of sexual desire. She is tough- minded and witty, and her depictions of Irish or Italian hypocrisies, and the male bastions of Church and politics, have the sharpness of a razor. These are stories that can shock reader with their sudden, serenely-accepted violence.

Under the Rose includes eight previously uncollected stories. Julia O'Faolain contributes an afterword about the the atmosphere in which some of these pieces were published: they were greeted with outrage and she was threatened with a number of libel actions.

Author Bio

Julia O'Faolain was born in London in 1932. Her novel No Country for Young Men was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She was brought up in Cork and Dublin, educated in Paris and Rome and married an American historian in Florence. She lived for many years in the US, and now lives in London.