Dublin

As many literati will know, Bloomsday is the annual celebration of James Joyce’s Ulysses, and of Joyce himself in general, fixed on the same day, June 16th, that the events of the novel take place on in 1904. Now, thanks pioneering French cinematographers the Lumière Brothers, footage of Dublin dating back to 1897, showing O’Connell […]

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The shortlist of ten novels for the 20th International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award has just been announced, with a slate that includes three translated foreign novels, as well as one entry from a local author and past winner, Colum McCann. The Award materials state that: “The IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award, an initiative of Dublin City […]

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London is proverbially one of the great literary cities, even if it hasn’t matched Edinburgh or Dublin with UNESCO City of Literature status yet. So it’s sad to see all that made it a truly unique world-historical capital being abandoned, and its urban fabric and skyline ruined, in the name of a futile bid for […]

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I hope no one’s going to object to me commemorating the anniversary of Samuel Beckett‘s birthday a day late. After all, the great pessimist himself would be first to expect such a thing. And his original birth date was Friday the 13th. Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin on Good Friday, April 13th, 1906 – […]

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Davos in Switzerland is one of the cities lucky – or unfortunate- enough to be canonized by a 20th-century classic of intellectual and cultural crisis. Thanks to The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann put Davos on the map alongside James Joyce’s Dublin, T.S. Eliot’s London, Andrei Bely’s Petersburg and Franz Kafka’s Prague as one of the [...]

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The UNESCO Cities of Literature list has one or two rather curious inclusions, even though its criteria are focused on the strengths of current programs to support writers and literature, rather than deep world-historical literary and cultural significance. Dublin deserves to be on that list, certainly, and Edinburgh; but Melbourne comes as a little more [...]

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