Conocimiento: Writing Irish Borderlands

« In an era when borders that previously defined Irish literature – whether spatial, social or of the body - demand renewed interrogation, Eamonn Wall’s book breathes energy and rigour into readings of Irish writers ranging from ‘homegrown’ to ‘immigrant and diasporic’, and reveals the emergence of increasingly hybrid creative practices ». (Lorna Shaughnessy, Poet and Director of Crosswinds: Irish and Galician Poetry and Translation). « Using Gloria Anzaldua’s work, Wall examines "borderlands" in Irish writing. These liminal spaces are not just territories, but culture, tradition, and time. Wall focuses on the borders that divide like class, gender, and sexuality but also language and the divide between the physical and spiritual worlds». (Timothy J. White, Professor of Political Science, Xavier University). In this study, Eamonn Wall brings the work of the American writer/scholar/activist Gloria Anzaldúa into dialogue with contemporary Irish and Irish American writing to reveal the many strategies that authors employ to describe, represent and navigate borders and borderlands. Borders, as Wall reveals, are not only geographical, but they are also psychological, ethical, gendered, abstract and obvious, and underlie much of life. Borderlands are liminal spaces in areas alongside borders that can be both liberating and frightening. Employing Anzaldúa’s language and methodology, Wall’s reveals how central borderlands are to the work of John McGahern, E.M. Reapy, Anna Burns, Úna Minh-Kavanagh, Terence Winch, Louis Owens, James Welsh, Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi, Philip Casey, and others.