Risings (Paperback)

A collection of essays on Irish literary and national identity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Risings traces two unfolding dramas: the renaissance of Irish identity through the Irish Literary Revival and and the parallel quest for Irish nationhood. This cultural movement came to serve as a crucial impetus for Ireland’s reemergent sense of self, while establishing Ireland as a worldwide literary force. 

This book includes four original essays: two by masters in the field of Irish studies and two by master Irish storytellers. R.A. Foster, author of the definitive biography of poet W.B. Yeats and numerous histories of modern Ireland, provides an overview of the Irish literary and political movements of the early twentieth century. Colm Tóibín, acclaimed Irish novelist and essayist, writes of James Joyce and the meaning of his characters’ names. Belinda McKeon, Irish playwright and novelist, views Yeats through his avocation as a collector. Scholar James Pethica, at work on the authorized biography of Lady Gregory, looks at her role as a political advocate and prime mover in the development of Irish cultural nationalism.

Alexander Neubauer is the author of three works of nonfiction: Poetry in Person: 25 Years of Conversation with America’s Poets, Conversations on Writing Fiction: Interviews with Distinguished Teachers of Fiction Writing in America, and Nature's Thumbprint: The New Genetics of Personality. His book reviews and essays have appeared in Time Out New York, Poets & Writers, and other periodicals. For many years he taught fiction writing at the New School in New York City. Born and raised in Manhattan, he now lives in Cornwall, Connecticut, with his wife, the writer April Stevens, and their two children.

Alan Klein is a partner in the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City. 

Colm Tóibín is a renowned Irish novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, playwright, professor, and literary critic. He is the author of ten novels, including Long Island; The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award and adapted for the BAFTA award-winning film of the same name; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster; as well as two story collections, several books of criticism, and a collection of poems, Vinegar Hill. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and has been named the 2022–2024 Laureate for Irish Fiction by the Arts Council of Ireland. Three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Tóibín lives in Dublin and New York City.