Ciaran Carson
Space, Place, Writing
Distributed for Liverpool University Press
Ciaran Carson is one of the most challenging and inventive of contemporary Irish writers, exhibiting verbal brilliance, formal complexity, and intellectual daring across a remarkably varied body of work. With his birthplace and hometown of Belfast as a recurrent—and often gritty—frame of reference, Carson engages the themes of history, geography, violence, and power. In this in-depth study, Neal Alexander employs urbanism, cultural theory, and literary criticism to decipher the ways in which Carson imaginatively navigates the ideas of space and place. A truly groundbreaking book and a new critical framework for exploring literary representations of space, this is the first study to consider the entire Carson canon, including poetry, prose, and translation.
"This is clearly the work of someone who has long immersed himself in Carson's writings and has an intimate knowledge of the contexts—spatial, literary, social, historical, and biographical—which have shaped them. The effective balance which is maintained between giving the reader a sense of the 'big picture' and offering close, detailed, brilliantly insightful readings of carefully selected poems/prose passages is one of the special strengths of this book. Through its comprehensive coverage of Carson's proliferating oeuvre, its meticulous research, and carefully nuanced argumentation, Ciaran Carson: Space, Place, Writing makes a significant contribution to the consiolidation and development of theoretical and critical thinking about Carson in particular, and contemporary Northern Ireland poetry more generally."
"The first monographic work on Irish poet Ciaran Carson, this book provides an extended framework for understanding Carson's entire body of works. Highly recommended."—Choice
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1: Imaginative Geographies: The Politics and Poetics
of Space
Chapter 2: Mapping Belfast: Urban Cartographies
Chapter 3: Deviations from the Known Route: Reading, Writing, Walking
Chapter 4: Revised Versions: Place and Memory
Chapter 5: Spatial Stories: Narrative and Representation
Chapter 6: Babel-babble: Language and Translation
Bibliography
General Index
Index of Works
Literature and Literary Criticism: Poetry
You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.
