Colum McCann and the Aesthetics of Redemption

Taking account of all of McCann’s literary fiction to date, Eóin Flannery considers the ways in which the writer navigates and negotiates between Ireland and the international, and between the past and the contemporary. Unlike many other Irish writers, McCann’s fiction is not limited by the ‘Irish experience’, but neither is it slavishly global. He transcends the limitations of nationality by exploring the interactions of many different nationalities and cultures.

McCann’s Irish heritage is a valuable resource in his engagement with the disenfranchised in Irish-American, African-American, and Eastern European histories during the twentieth-century. Flannery argues that McCann’s writing re-imagines the possibilities of contemporary Irish fiction, it places Irish history, Irish writing, and Irish cultural life into artistic and ethical dialogue with other marginal cultures.

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