Two new Dermot Healy books

Dalkey Archive Press have just published two books by and about the late Dermot Healy:

Writing the Sky: Observations and Essays on Dermot Healy, edited, with an Introduction, by Neil Murphy & Keith Hopper, and with a Foreword by Neil Jordan (Texas/London/Dublin: Dalkey Archive Press, 2016), 422pp+xxiv: http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/product/writing-the-sky-observations-and-essays-on-dermot-healy/

Dermot Healy, The Collected Plays, edited, with an Introduction, by Keith Hopper & Neil Murphy (Texas/London/Dublin: Dalkey Archive Press, 2016), 583pp+xxxiii: http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/product/the-collected-plays/

Both books form part of a multi-volume sequence published by Dalkey Archive Press and edited by Neil Murphy & Keith Hopper. The series also includes Healy’s The Collected Short Stories (2015), and an edited reprint of his debut novel Fighting with Shadows (2015).

Reviews of The Collected Short Stories and Fighting with Shadows:

“Dalkey Archive Press has republished Dermot Healy’s first novel, Fighting with Shadows, and issued his Collected Short Stories. These books provide an insight into the most extraordinary Irish literary consciousness of the last fifty years. […] What lies before you in these books is both a gift to see the world with a clarity not often granted, and the immense will and virtuosity to render that vision as art.” (Eoin McNamee, Irish Times, 2015)

“Before Murphy and Hopper’s accomplished reissue of Fighting with Shadows the novel has been out of print since 1986. What was a reasonably chaotic text has become lucid and elegant under editorial guidance, and is now rigged with an introduction, a glossary of Irish terms and a list of published extracts from the novel that gives readers a view into Healy’s methods of composition and revision. The clarity of the editorship supports an appreciation of Healy’s style: his innovations with dialogue and reported speech have flowered, free of typographical weeds. Much the same can be said for the editors’ work on The Collected Short Stories, which is a triumph of colourful and rational compilation.” (Luke Maxted, Times Literary Supplement, 2016)