Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney

by Dennis O ' Driscoll (Author), Dennis O ' Driscoll (Author)

New
Paperback
2009
$15.87

Widely regarded as the finest poet of his generation, Seamus Heaney is the subject of numerous critical studies; but no book-length portrait has appeared until now. Through his own lively and eloquent reminiscences, Stepping Stones retraces the poet's steps from his early works, through to his receipt of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature and his post-Nobel life. It is supplemented with a large number of photographs, many from the Heaney family album and published here for the first time. In response to firm but subtle questioning from Dennis O'Driscoll, Seamus Heaney sheds a personal light on his work (poems, essays, translations, plays) and on the artistic and ethical challenges he faced, providing an original, diverting and absorbing store of reflections, opinions and recollections.

Synopsis

Widely regarded as the finest poet of his generation, Seamus Heaney is the subject of numerous critical studies; but no book-length portrait has appeared until now. Through his own lively and eloquent reminiscences, "Stepping Stones" retraces the poet's steps from his early works, through to his receipt of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature and his post-Nobel life. It is supplemented with a large number of photographs, many from the Heaney family album and published here for the first time. In response to firm but subtle questioning from Dennis O'Driscoll, Seamus Heaney sheds a personal light on his work (poems, essays, translations, plays) and on the artistic and ethical challenges he faced, providing an original, diverting and absorbing store of reflections, opinions and recollections.

$15.87

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 560
Edition: Main
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 06 Aug 2009
ISBN 10: 0571242537
ISBN 13: 9780571242535
Book Overview: Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, edited by Dennis O'Driscoll, is a unique insight into the life and mind of the Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet.

Media Reviews

Praise for Stepping Stones

This really is a remarkable book. There isn't a dull, vapid or useless sentence in it; it's about what it is to be human, as much as it is about what it is to be a poet. -Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian

[ Stepping Stones ] is a Heaney word horde that will not be surpassed for some time . . . [It] will be seized on by students of the work as well as the common reader . . . [Heaney] is intensely present within these pages-still surprising, still defying 'the merciless landscapes' with generosity, courage and joy. -Bel Mooney, The Times (London)

[An] important book-length interview, designed to serve in lieu of a memoir . . . Dennis O'Driscoll [is] an excellent poet and critic, and a deeply informed and probing interviewer of his longtime friend. -Adam Kirsch, The New Republic

Stepping Stones succeeds on many levels, and O'Driscoll

Author Bio

Dennis O'Driscoll's previous publications include New and Selected Poems (2004), a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation, and Reality Check (2007). He is editor of The Bloodaxe Book of Poetry Quotations (2006), author of a collection of essays and reviews, Troubled Thoughts, Majestic Dreams (2001), and a contributor to The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney(2008). He works as a civil servant in Dublin.