Agape with wonder from beyond the graveFiction: Appearing as a surprise New Year's gift, or time bomb, or possibly both, the welcome publication of a belated final…Sat Jan 11 2003 - 00:00
LiteratureLITERATURE: Web sites become increasingly elaborate, offering information in the speedy sound bites designed for our hasty society…Mon Dec 09 2002 - 00:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryAll that rain, all that darkness. What a dreary winter. It was 4.30 a.m. and rain was bouncing off the rattling windowsMon Dec 09 2002 - 00:00
The silence of the damnedFor Hanna X, there is no memory of life before the suffering and humiliation beginSat Nov 16 2002 - 00:00
Best-selling eccentric fictionFICTION: Is the bond between reading, writing and drinking quite as intense as the German writer Michael Krüger considers it…Sat Nov 09 2002 - 00:00
A comic cautionary tale for Victorian cads FictionFICTION: Lazy, unhappy William Rackham, weary of his ailing wife and constitutionally half-hearted about life in general, could…Sat Nov 02 2002 - 00:00
Trevor short-listed for Booker PrizeThe veteran Irish writer William Trevor has been short-listed for this year's Booker Prize.Wed Sept 25 2002 - 01:00
Trevor stands up to strong challengeIrish master storyteller William Trevor's novel is the best in what isa fine shortlist for this year's Man Booker Prize, writes…Wed Sept 25 2002 - 01:00
Pushing things a gag too farFashion and trends make for odd happenings in clothes and popular music, but exactly how far they can expect to dictate fiction…Sat Sept 21 2002 - 01:00
A pretentious paradeOne day in the life of a city street, in any city, any timeSat Sept 07 2002 - 01:00
A tale of two husbandsTwo middle-aged men, friends, both married; one loves four women - his mother, his wife and his two daughters but is also in …Sat Aug 31 2002 - 01:00
From Russo with love and subtle humourThe Whore's Child and Other Stories. By Richard Russo. Chatto, 225 pp. £10Sat Aug 17 2002 - 01:00
Sun shines on ponies at Clifden ShowFull summer sunshine made a late but welcome arrival at the famous Connemara Pony Show held in the Showgrounds at Clifden, Co…Fri Aug 16 2002 - 01:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryEven the most dedicated historian may plead weariness in the face of royal genealogySat Jul 27 2002 - 01:00
Judges get it right for children's book awardLiterary prize judges do sometimes get it rightFri May 31 2002 - 01:00
International line-up for writers' festivalA trio of Irish writers whose work suggests that crime can pay, several major international poets and novelists, and a jazz-based…Wed May 22 2002 - 01:00
Irish novelist Michael Collins among seven contending for IMPAC awardIrish writer Michael Collins and the two most recent Booker Prize winners are among the seven contenders for this year's International…Tue Mar 12 2002 - 00:00
Dublin ceremony to honour William TrevorWilliam Trevor, one of Ireland's most internationally revered writers, will tonight be honoured at an award's ceremony in Dublin…Fri Feb 08 2002 - 00:00
No mercy from melodrama in a complex narrativeHaving once been faced with the possible death of another youth, Sydney Henderson makes a pact with GodSat Dec 29 2001 - 00:00
De Valera introduces draft plan for BoyneThe shortest day of the year at Newgrange passage grave in Co Meath was in danger of becoming a longer morning than usual as …Sat Dec 22 2001 - 00:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryWith Christmas comes the annual plea: don't give a puppy or a cat as a present without serious thoughtSat Dec 22 2001 - 00:00
No room for evil as darkness turns to day in a blaze of morning gloryDarkness turns to day and a gathering of people stand outside, gazing towards the horizon, as if waiting for a message from the…Sat Dec 22 2001 - 00:00
As funny and horrible as life itselfIn 1992 Richard Ford, one of contemporary fiction's finest writers - and readers - decided to take a look at US short fiction…Sat Dec 22 2001 - 00:00
German writer W.G. Sebald diesWorld literature has been cruelly and abruptly robbed of a truly great voice. The death of the German writer W.GMon Dec 17 2001 - 00:00
Bellow - A Biography by James Atlas (Faber, £16.00 in UK)No one could accuse Atlas of idealising his subjectSat Dec 15 2001 - 00:00
Lure of the strangeMichael Reed is not having a routine breakdown; he is caught in a state of suspended animationSat Dec 15 2001 - 00:00
A superb, earthy pastoralWe live in an era in which Irish writing is continually slapping itself on the backSat Dec 08 2001 - 00:00
The Alphonse Courrier Affair by Marta Morazzoni, translated by Emma Rose (Harvill, £6.99 in UK)Blandly handsome, confident, apparently invincible, Alphonse Courrier owns a hardware shop in a rural French villageSat Nov 17 2001 - 00:00
Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian, translated by Mabel Lee (Flamingo, £7.99 in UK)First published in Taiwan in 1990, this extraordinary personal and philosophical odyssey by last year's Nobel literature laureate…Sat Nov 17 2001 - 00:00
The secrets that destroyA betrayal of trust appears to be about to lead an angry husband into the darker chapters of his family's historySat Nov 10 2001 - 00:00
The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan (Flamingo, £6.99 in UK)Tan's fourth novel, and her first in six years, may be her best to dateSat Nov 03 2001 - 00:00
Unbearable dullness of beingA middle-aged woman, still beautiful but aware of no longer being young, mourns her dead marriage and despairs over the behaviour…Sat Nov 03 2001 - 00:00
Too Far Afield. By Gunther Grass. ( Faber £12.99 in UK)This huge, lively, engaging, often despairing picaresque vividly displays Grass's enduring love of, and fear for, his Germany…Sat Oct 27 2001 - 01:00
Perils of the canyonThe Grand Canyon is the greatest natural monument in the worldSat Oct 20 2001 - 01:00
Nice guy's cyber-quest for dear old dadEiji Miyake's search for his father takes place against impossible oddsSat Oct 13 2001 - 01:00
Hot hooves, cool headsWorld economies continue to waver in the face of the international security crisis, while at home the Irish property market is…Fri Oct 12 2001 - 01:00
Naipaul the outsider wins after a weary waitingThe novelist V.S. Naipaul yesterday achieved the wildest dream of his iron-willed, sometimes viper-tongued and initially impoverished…Fri Oct 12 2001 - 01:00
Remembering a life of my ownHaving quietly lived a life that was given to him, Austerlitz in retirement sets out to reclaim his lost selfSat Oct 06 2001 - 01:00
Innocence, imagination, revenge and regretHonourable echoes of Evelyn Waugh and Virginia Woolf are to be heard throughout this magnificent, unusually graceful novelSat Sept 29 2001 - 01:00
A fine tale of failureA man recounts the story of his life of failure and fear to his sonSat Sept 22 2001 - 01:00
Crace's cold plateThe 64 chapters - really 63, as the final one consists of only one word - in Jim Crace's latest novel are largely clever variations…Sat Sept 15 2001 - 01:00
A day at the racesTwice a day the tide retreats to reveal the full expanse of beautiful Omey beach at Claddaghduff in ConnemaraTue Sept 11 2001 - 01:00
Important moral and artistic workThe bizarre rise and fall of the Third Reich remains one of the strangest and most terrifying chapters of 20th-century history…Sat Sept 08 2001 - 01:00
When there's no place left to runAs she has consistently shown since the emergence of the "New" South Africa, Nadine Gordimer has not relaxed her humourless, …Sat Sept 01 2001 - 01:00
Martha Peake by Patrick McGrath (Penguin, £7.99 in UK)Patrick McGrath is a master of dark, psychological tormentSat Sept 01 2001 - 01:00
Nothing left to showThere are things to be said about Fury, Salman Rushdie's self-indulgent and embarrassing eighth novelSat Aug 25 2001 - 01:00
Falling for the hand of a dead manA good-looking, sex-addicted reporter employed by a tacky disaster news channel becomes the stuff of his own style of journalism…Sat Aug 18 2001 - 01:00
