Irish Women Writers Speak Out

This work brings together in one volume the diverse and articulate voices of 17 Irish women writers from a variety of backgrounds and geographic locations. It examines the complicated maps of experience that these women's public, private, and literary lives represent, particularly as they engage with both feminism and postcolonialism. Acknowledging Mary Robinson's revised view of Irish identity as global rather than insular, this work recognizes the importance of identity as a site of mobility. The interviews reveal how complex the terms feminism and postcolonialism are; they examine how the individual writers see their identities constructed and/or mediated by sexuality. Between the interviews, the authors trace common themes of female agency, violence, generational conflicts, migration, emigration, religion, and politics.