1st Edition
James Joyce’s Legacies in Contemporary Irish Women’s Writing
Introduction: Interrupted Silences
1. Women in James Joyce’s Work
2. The Reception of Joyce in Irish Women’s Writing
3. Anne Enright’s The Gathering
4. Eimear McBride’s A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing
5. Emilie Pine’s Ruth & Pen
Conclusion: Reimagining Joyce
In Her Views
Interview with Anne Enright
Interview with Emilie Pine
Interview with Mary Morrissy
Biography
Annalisa Mastronardi holds a PhD in Irish Literature from Dublin City University, where she explored the legacies of James Joyce’s work in contemporary Irish women’s writing.
"James Joyce’s Legacies in Contemporary Irish Women’s Writing is a timely, deep-mining, and intricate honouring of Joyce’s women, and the Irish women writers who, in turn, honour him. Annalisa Mastronardi is ferocious, factual, and fair in her crucial examination of the absolute centrality of women to the project of Joyce, as man, writer, and influential creative."
--Nuala O’Connor, author of NORA
"This important study argues that while Irish male writers struggled with Joyce’s legacy, Irish women writers embraced his innovations and made them their own. Mastronardi offers a compelling history of critique and empowerment in contemporary Irish women’s fiction, combining a brilliant overview with focused readings of individual authors."
--Derek Hand, Dublin City University, author of A History of the Irish Novel
"This wide-ranging and original study tracks Joyce’s dynamic presence in Irish women’s fiction. Uniting literary history, case studies, and interviews, Annalisa Mastronardi brilliantly shows how Joyce’s works act as enablers for women writers who continuously reinvent and talk back at them."
--Anne Fogarty, University College Dublin
"A work of dignified audacity and interpretative acumen which explores the subtle ways in which women writers have responded to Joyce. For a man who had the reputation of despising intellectual women, he has been nobly assisted by many contemporaries and brilliantly illuminated by recent Irish female novelists and thinkers who take his work as a point of departure. This book scintillates in its exploration of these encounters."
--Declan Kiberd, University of Notre Dame, author of Inventing Ireland
