Twenty Years A-Growing (Paperback, Reissue)

Ireland uber alles this month - here is another book out of its very heart's blood. An enchanting picture of a boy's life on an island off the coast of Ireland, where excitement is found in egg hunting on the cliffs, in rabbit snaring, in stealing a ride at dawn to the mainland to see the races, in fairs and wakes and playing truant from school. The war comes and goes, and to the boys it means prosperity because of the wreckage washed up on the rocks. And the final adventure marking manhood, is the trip to Dublin, there to join the militia. There is humor and pathos, sincerity and poetry, and the whole told in an exquisite lilting prose in which one catches the strains of Irish music. (Kirkus Reviews)

Maurice O'Sullivan was born on the Great Blasket in 1904, and 'Twenty Years A-Growing' tells the story of his youth and of a way of life which belonged to the Middle Ages. He wrote for his own pleasure and for the entertainment of his friends, without any thought of a wider public; his style is derived from folk-tales which he heard from his grandfather and sharpened by his own lively imagination. The Blasket Islands are three miles off Irelands Dingle Peninsula. Until their evacuation just after the Second World War, the lives of the 150 or so Blasket Islanders had remained unchanged for centuries. A rich oral tradition of story-telling, poetry, and folktales kept alive the legends and history of the islands, and has made their literature famous throughout the world. The 7 Blasket Island books published by OUP contain memoirs and reminiscences from within this literary tradition, evoking a way of life which has now vanished.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	February 1983
First published:	February 1983
Authors:	Maurice O'Sullivan
Translators:	Moya Llewellyn Davies • George Thomson
Introduction by:	E.M. Forster
Dimensions:	196 x 129 x 23mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	298
Edition:	Reissue
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-281325-1
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > General Books > Language & Literature > Literature: texts > Essays, journals, letters & other prose works > From 1900 > General Books > Biography > General
LSN:	0-19-281325-0
Barcode:	9780192813251

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