On a quest in the Mexican graveyard of historyFiction: A man, possibly still young, yet old enough to have turned to habit for comfort, finally makes a slow discovery about…Sat Aug 21 2004 - 01:00
Taking a shaky first stepFiction Paul is good-looking, affable, obsessed with dancing, uncomplicated and content in his job repairing machinesSat Aug 14 2004 - 01:00
A tale of coldness and compromiseFiction: An accident that should never have happened, doesSat Jul 17 2004 - 01:00
Wayward Don wins the hearts of music loversA colourful assembly gathered in a gracious garden to witness justice being doneMon Jul 12 2004 - 01:00
Memories of ManausFICTION/Tale Of A Certain Orient: Emilie, a courageous family matriarch who has borne her many sorrows with dignity, is about…Sat Jul 10 2004 - 01:00
Wasted youthFiction: Youth, as has been said - and agreed with many times - is wasted on the youngSat Jul 03 2004 - 01:00
Making it up to ease the pressure of realityFiction: On reaching the age of 50, the narrator of this heartbreaking, unforgettable and devastating book recalls: "I knew …Sat Jun 26 2004 - 01:00
Playing with possibilitiesFiction: How many variations may be played of one life. Not nearly enough, most would replySat Jun 19 2004 - 01:00
Moroccan writer wins €100,000 literary awardExposure of human rights abuses in Morocco is at the heart of the novel which won the €100,000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary…Fri Jun 18 2004 - 01:00
Part exile, part seerTomas Venclova fled communism in 1977, yet he is not a poet of protestThu Jun 03 2004 - 01:00
Passenger watchingFiction: No matter how many ways writers tug and pull at the notion of narrative, one man's story retains its appealSat May 29 2004 - 01:00
Choking on self-indulgenceFiction: Andrew Norton, described by the book blurb as "poet, visionary and hack" but exposed through the meandering narrative…Sat May 22 2004 - 01:00
Simple sermonising on life and death and brotherly loveFiction: No greater love hath a man for a woman than the guy who set out to prove his undying devotion by eating a 747 aircraft…Sat May 15 2004 - 01:00
Lessons from the masterShort Stories: A man and a woman arrange to meet in a theatre bar. The arrangement has been made through a dating agencySat May 08 2004 - 01:00
Lukewarm on the heels of the storyFiction: Ka, a poet and political exile living in Frankfurt, returns to Turkey on a missionSat May 01 2004 - 01:00
Myth-making in Border countryWartime myths are odd, ambivalent things. Heroism is so easily corrupted; brutality becomes mixed up with courageSat Apr 10 2004 - 01:00
In the country of lost soulsFiction A wayward romantic pursues the woman he loves. She, in turn, stalks the killer of her adored little sisterSat Mar 20 2004 - 00:00
Short stories too good for wordsFiction: Take a new writer who arrived from nowhere with a dramatic, ambitious and important first novelSat Mar 13 2004 - 00:00
Now, for my next trick . . .Fiction: Exactly how many voices does a novelist need? How many stories does it take to make a novel? Is there a point at which…Sat Mar 06 2004 - 00:00
Trapped by cliches on paradise islandFiction: Professor of English at a minor university, Michael has a beautiful son, an undemanding job and an attractive, if edgy…Sat Feb 28 2004 - 00:00
Bad memoriesMemoir: Many novels are simply disguised autobiographies. Some memoirs, such as J.MSat Feb 21 2004 - 00:00
Winnie's weird wobbly worldFiction: Winnie is old, lost, hurt beyond belief and possibly insaneSat Feb 14 2004 - 00:00
Memoir honours the Irish Draught horseTribute has been paid to the Irish Draught horse, which contributed to the country's social history over generations, in a new…Sat Jan 31 2004 - 00:00
Irish Pen award for film director JordanThe film director Neil Jordan tonight receives this year's Irish Pen Lifetime's Achievement awardFri Jan 30 2004 - 00:00
If nothing mattersMemoir All the horrors, all the betrayals, all the nasty little cruelties of war are chronicled in this sharp, unsentimental…Sat Jan 24 2004 - 00:00
War of the writersWhat makes a great short story? What makes a great novel? And, as has been asked so many times, which is the higher art - the…Sat Jan 17 2004 - 00:00
Getting on first-name termsFiction An Indian couple, married according to the tradition of arranged matches, slowly come to know each otherSat Jan 10 2004 - 00:00
DBC Pierre follows Booker with Whitbread First Novel awardAustralian author and Irish resident DBC Pierre yesterday won the Whitbread First Novel award for his Booker Prize-winning novel…Wed Jan 07 2004 - 00:00
Shallow in the Deep SouthA life evolves, but does not so much expand as lengthen in the case of Finus BatesSat Jan 03 2004 - 00:00
The trials of TusitalaFiction: Fact or fiction - where does one end and the other begin? The short life, extensive travels and literary career of …Sat Dec 27 2003 - 00:00
Newgrange delivers its mid-winter magicCuriosity and belief create tradition and custom becomes ritualMon Dec 22 2003 - 00:00
Characters overpoweredSeveral voices, several lives, all caught up in a drama of sorts caused by the impact one man had on the women he knew.Sat Nov 22 2003 - 00:00
Five Irish writers on IMPAC longlistSeveral of Ireland's leading writers, including William Trevor, John Banville and playwright Sebastian Barry, are among the authors…Tue Nov 18 2003 - 00:00
A life in cultural isolationMemoir: Mothers and daughters, daughters and mothers - a major theme and an apparently inexhaustible one.Sat Nov 15 2003 - 00:00
Revival of a doomed romantic questFriedrich loves Sibylle. But it is far more than love: it is complete, all- consuming adoration.Sat Nov 01 2003 - 00:00
A study in desperationFiction: A man gets a crack on the head and loses himself in a haze of guilty secrets that return from his sexual pastSat Sept 06 2003 - 01:00
Mother of all sport horsesIrish Draught: Its quality and presence is there for all to see, in dressage competition, in three-day eventing, on the hunting…Fri Aug 08 2003 - 01:00
Faith and celebration on majestic mountainLegend maintains St Patrick tried to kill off the devil's mother on the summit of Croagh Patrick, Ireland's Holy MountainMon Jul 28 2003 - 01:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryWhat constitutes a hero? History tends to present soldiers and explorers, individuals who defeated the enemy in battle, or survived…Mon Jul 21 2003 - 01:00
Paved with pure goldFiction Given in marriage while still a girl to a man twice her age, Nazneen is a young Bangladeshi woman, who leaves her native…Sat Jul 12 2003 - 01:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryMidnight. The Irish Times owl is on her way to collect our copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the PhoenixMon Jun 30 2003 - 01:00
Darkness on the edge of townShort Stories Before entering the weirdly dark world of A. MSat Jun 28 2003 - 01:00
Bloomsday: a 99-year ritual celebrating that first dateHow many anniversaries of first dates are as widely celebrated as that of Jim and Nora? Probably none, writes Eileen Battersby…Mon Jun 16 2003 - 01:00
What's the wurst that could happen?Fiction: A young German soldier returns from the horrors of the Great WarSat May 17 2003 - 01:00
Strife in the fast laneFiction New York investor and ace money man Eric Parker is so rich he is almost insane, and is certainly miserableSat May 10 2003 - 01:00
The enigma of warFICTION: Among history's many confusions, none is as chaotic as the Spanish Civil WarSat May 03 2003 - 01:00
John McGahern receives PEN/A.T. Cross literary awardNovelist John McGahern is the winner of this year's Irish PEN/A.T. Cross Award.Thu Mar 06 2003 - 00:00
Into a wonderful, weird and crazy worldFICTION: Belief and duplicity become almost interchangeable in US novelist, Howard Norman's latest excursion into the strange…Sat Jan 18 2003 - 00:00