Post-celtic Tiger Ireland and Contemporary Women’s Writing: Feminist Interventions and Imaginings

Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland and Contemporary Women’s Writing: Feminist Interventions and Imaginings analyzes and explores women’s writing of the post-Tiger period and reflects on the social, cultural, and economic conditions of this writing’s production.

The Post-Celtic Tiger period (2008–) in Ireland marks an important moment in the history of women’s writing. It is a time of increased visibility and publication, dynamic feminist activism, and collective projects, as well as a significant garnering of public recognition to a degree that has never been seen before. The collection is framed by interviews with Claire Kilroy and Melatu Uche Okorie―two leading figures in the field―and closes with Okorie’s landmark short story on Direct Provision, “This Hostel Life.” The book features the work of leading scholars in the field of contemporary literature, with essays on Anu Productions, Emma Donoghue, Grace Dyas, Anne Enright, Rita Ann Higgins, Marian Keyes, Claire Kilroy, Eimear McBride, Rosaleen McDonagh, Belinda McKeon, Melatu Uche Okorie, Louise O’Neill, and Waking The Feminists. Reflecting on all the successes and achievements of women’s writing in the contemporary period, this book also considers marginalization and exclusions in the field, especially considering the politics of race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, and ability.

The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory.

Claire Bracken is Associate Professor in the English Department at Union College, New York, USA, where she teaches courses on Irish literature and film. She has published articles on Irish women’s writing, feminist criticism, and Irish cultural studies. She is co-editor of Anne Enright (Irish Academic Press, 2011) and Viewpoints: Theoretical Perspectives on Irish Visual Texts (Cork University Press, 2013). Her book, Irish Feminist Futures (2016), was published by Routledge as part of the Transformation series.

Tara Harney-Mahajan is Assistant Professor of English at Caldwell University, New Jersey, USA, where she teaches courses on Irish literature and Global Anglophone literature. Her research specializes in contemporary Irish and South Asian literature, and her scholarship has been published in journals such as Women’s Studies and New Hibernia Review. In the Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture series, she has a chapter forthcoming on representations of Ireland’s architecture of containment in recent films. She is also co-editor of the literary studies journal LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory.