This original study focusing on four Irish writers – Leslie Daiken, Charles Donnelly, Ewart Milne and Michael Sayers – retrieves a hitherto neglected episode of Thirties literary history which highlights the local and global aspects of Popular Front cultural movements. From interwar London to the Spanish Civil War and the USSR, the book examines the lives and work of Irish writers through their writings, their witness texts and their political activism. The relationships of these writers to George Orwell, Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Nancy Cunard, William Carlos Williams and other figures of cultural significance within the interwar period sheds new light on the internationalist aspects of a Leftist cultural history. The book also explores how Irish literary women on the Left defied marginalization. The impetus of the book is not merely to perform an act of literary salvage but to find new ways of re-imagining what might be said to constitute Irish literature mid-twentieth century; and to illustrate how Irish writers played a role in a transforming political moment of the twentieth century. It will be of interest to scholars and students of cultural history and literature, Irish diaspora studies, Jewish studies, and the social and literary history of the Thirties.
Part 1: Art and Exile, 1936–1939
Introduction
1. "Dublin to Euston our Via Dolorosa..."
2. "Life was one long continuum of agitprop"
3. "Equality has ceased to be accorded to us, save on paper"
4. "Visit Leningrad and take off your hat"
Part 2: Art and War, 1936–1945
5. "I too have heard companion voices die"
6. "Now when all the buildings of Europe don their sackcloth..."
Epilogue: Aftermath of the Thirties Epitaphs and Legacies: "... And on my grave, I see no flowers from any people"
Biography
Katrina Goldstone is an independent researcher and scholar who has been a regular writer and commentator for publications and radio programmess in Ireland and the UK on minorities, cultural diversity and Jewish communities.
"This is a very accessible book, written to the highest academic and research standards. The extensive bibliography and footnotes are a pathway into the forgotten literary and political output of that generation. Goldstone explores the political and literary geography of the period and leaves, as she says, the abstract theory to others. Her book is a tribute to the ‘dead singers of red songs everywhere’. Despite the outrageous price, for any reader or student who is interested in the 1930s radical tradition, this book is essential; borrow it from the library if necessary.
Paul O'Brien, Saothar 47, Journal of Irish Labour History, Spring 2022
"Katrina Goldstone’s account of the activity of Irish left-wing writers in the Thirties is something of a revelation."
George O'Brien, Professor Emeritus of English at Georgetown University, Washington DC
"Goldstone shows an enviable familiarity with the careers and connections of those involved as well as a seemingly unsurpassable command of relevant materials, whether they be primary print sources, secondary critical material or, most impressively, unpublished archival matter such as drafts, memoirs and correspondence. For gathering all this in one place and attempting to construct a narrative of it, despite some difficulties in organising such a welter of data and a large cast of characters, Katrina Goldstone is to be warmly congratulated."
George O'Brien, Professor Emeritus of English at Georgetown University, Washington DC
