Reading In The Dark

Deane, Seamus
Born in Derry in 1940, Seamus Deane has published several books of criticism and poetry; his essay collection 'Small World: Ireland 1800-2000' will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. He lives in Dublin.

A haunted childhood, lived out in two dimensions. One is legendary: the Sun-fort of Grianan, home of the warrior Fianna; the Field of the Disappeared, over which no gulls fly; the house in Donegal where children are stolen away by demonic forces. The other is actual: the city of Derry in the Northern Ireland of the 40s and 50s; a place that is also haunted by political enmities, family secrets, lethal intrigue. The boy narrator of READING IN THE DARK grows up enclosed in these two worlds, sensing that they are intertwined in some mysterious ways that he both wants and does not want to discover. Through the silence that surrounds him, he feels the truth spreading like a stain until it engulfs him and his family. Claustrophobic but lyrically charged, breathtakingly sad but vibrant and unforgettable, READING IN THE DARK is one of the finest books about growing up - in Ireland or anywhere - that has ever been written.

Die Geschichte einer Familie im Nordirland der 40er und 50er Jahre. Realität und Legende, politisches Geschehen und persönliches Leid sind darin eng miteinander verknüpft. Erzählt wird die Geschichte aus der Perspektive eines aufgeweckten Halbwüchsigen, der ein dunkles Familiengeheimnis zu ergründen versucht. Ein Geheimnis, das seine Mutter zeitweilig fast in den Wahnsinn treibt. Und je näher er der Lösung kommt, um so klarer wird ihm, daß er alles für sich behalten muß, wenn er die Familie nicht ins Unglück stürzen will.