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Books: Can they write about happiness? Aisling Foster on a doorstep of Irish fiction; The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction Edited by Colm Tibn Viking pounds 25

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From: The Independent - London
Date: 19991205
Author:Aisling Foster

This great big doorstep of a book demonstrates the size and breath of the genre called "Irish Fiction". Inevitably, some names are missing. But with almost 100 writers, collected on over 1,000 pages, this is not a selection which can be taken up lightly. Nor, as Colm Tibn's equally heavyweight introduction shows, is it simply a romp through the Irish imagination from Jonathan Swift to the gay thirtysomethings of the European Union (though it is this, too). The presence of the editor is everywhere. His singular eye encompasses an extraordinarily wide range of subject and viewpoint. And despite ...

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