OFaolain, Sean

O’Faolain, Sean 

Born Feb. 22, 1900, in Cork. Irish writer. Educated at the National University of Ireland. Member of the Irish Academy of Letters.

O’Faolain served in the civil war of 1922–23 on the Republican side. The national liberation movement is the central theme of his first collection of short stories, Midsummer Night Madness (1932). His family chronicle A Nest of Simple Folk (1933; Russian translation, 1941) reveals the social conflicts that led to the Easter Rising of 1916. Between 1940 and 1949, O’Faolain edited the progressive journal Bell.

Predominant in O’Faolain’s short-story collections Teresa (1947) and The Finest Short Stories of Sean O’Faolain (1957) are the themes of solitude and disillusionment. In his short stories of the 1960’s and 1970’s the heroes’ tragic fates are shown to result from a clash with a hostile reality. This theme is found in the collections I Remember! I Remember! (1962) and The Talking Trees (1971). O’Faolain has also published his autobiography, Vive Moi! (1964).

WORKS

Bird Alone [Dublin] 1936.
The Man Who Invented Sin and Other Stories. New York, 1949.
Short Stories. Boston and Toronto, 1961.

REFERENCES

Sarukhanian, A. P. Sovremennaia irlandskaia literatura. Moscow, 1973.
Harmon, M. Sean O’Faolain: A Critical Introduction. London, 1967.
Doyle, P. Sean O’Faolain. New York, 1968.

A. P. SARUKHANIAN