The Road to Brightcity and Other Stories by Mairtin O Cadhain (RB452)

Published 1981: First Paperback Edition / Softcover / Very Good Condition

Pictorial stiff card covers. 111 very clean and bright pages. Slight shelf wear on covers. (RB67)

Postage €4.00.
An Post prepaid postage envelopes within the Republic of Ireland, with no weight restrictions from €6.00.

The Road to Brightcity (Translated from the Irish by Eoghan O Tuairisc)

Máirtín Ó Cadhain (1906-1970) was one of the most prominent Irish language writers of the twentieth century. Perhaps best known for his 1949 work Cré na Cille, Ó Cadhain played a key role in bringing literary modernism to contemporary Irish language literature. This volume contains nine short stories, and is the first of his works to be translated from the original Irish into English. Translated by Eoghan Ó Tuairisc.

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2002
I am from the west of Ireland. My husband bought me a copy of this book when we were dating and I had never heard of it. I studied O'Caidhn in school, but knew there was very little of his stuff translated to English. It is definitely, the most precious collection of stories one could ever read. It is so beautiful but at the same time so painful to read through the very vivid descriptions of country life at its simplest level, and it brings a yearning to one's heart to have simple beauty without the heartache. O'Caidhn takes you through the fields in the fierce wind, by the roads, barefoot, in the cold, through that savage wind and rain of the West of Ireland that rips through your skin and makes your soul cold. He takes you through the rocky roads and winding hills, in pain or desperation, and when you see a baby smile with joy or find the heather blooming under a ray of sunshine or your shopping bag doesn't break while you are carrying a few maums of flour for bread for your hungry husband, you experience that 30 seconds of pure pleasure that makes the journey so worthwhile. O'Caidhn knows, he knows, that the simplest gifts are the best. He knows that life is beautiful, even if the journey is painful sometimes. Where ever O'Caidhn takes you, you are there completely, as you read through his pages.
O'Caidhn is this good to read after being translated. Imagine what his work is like if you read it in the native tongue....

* The Withering Branch
* The Year 1912
* Tabu
* Son of the Tax-King
* The Road to Brightcity
* The Gnarled and Stony Clods
* Of Townland's Tip
* The Hare-lip
* Floodtide
* Going on

https://www.amazon.com/Road-Brightcity-Mairtin-OCadhain-1981-01-01/dp