Description Ten years ago, this book of short stories was considered to pose such a threat to Ireland’s national security that advertising its existence was banned by the Irish broadcasting authorities and the high court. Now a new generation of readers can judge for themselves.
Gerry Adams is the President of Sinn Féin, MP for West Belfast, and a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly. He is the author of an autobiography, Before the Dawn (1996), and several other books, which include local history, short stories, and an account of his political views, Free Ireland: Towards a Lasting Peace (1994).
“About all the stories there is a certain elegiac quality: a sense that something important is slipping away, being lost. As he showed in Falls Memories and Cage Eleven, Adams is concerned with memory, for the streets and the people he describes are truer to the past than to the present...The warmth of Adams’s writing comes from the affection of a man for the remembered things of his past... The Street demonstrates that Adams can write well.” Times Literary Supplement
“He brings a wry humour and a detailed observation to small events... If there is a unifying strand, it is compassion for people in difficult situations.” Sunday Times
“A good writer of fiction whose stories are not IRA agitprop but serious art. It is a good bet that James Joyce would read Gerry Adams’s short stories to learn about souls in Belfast as the world reads Dubliners.” James F. Clarity (New York Times) in the Irish Independent
“The political sub-text is predictable; what is more surprising is that it is restrained and the stories concentrate on the conflict of human relationships.” The Times
Author President of Sinn Féin and Westminster MP for West Belfast, Gerry Adams has been a published writer since 1982. His books have won critical acclaim in many quarters and have been widely translated. His writings range from local history and reminiscence to politics and short stories, and they include the fullest and most authoritative exposition of modern Irish republicanism.
