Couverture / Jaquette

Flann O'Brien's gloriously wicked satire of the traditional Irish peasant novel, 'The Poor Mouth' tells the shamelessly ironic story of Bonaparte O'Coonassa, born in the west of Ireland 'on a terrible winter's night'. A hymn to the world of potatoes, rain and 'excellent poverty', this cruelly funny assault on the fashionable Gaelic Revival of the day brought the wrath of the custodians of national sentiment upon O'Brien's head for many years thereafter.

'A wonderful romp amongst the unspeakable stereotypes of Irishry.'
THE TIMES

'A Gaelic novel, all footnotes and authenticity, 'The Poor Mouth' is O'Brien's practical joke. Hugely and unfairly funny.'
OBSERVER

'Anyone who has read the Blasket writers, cooked a pained ear to Peig Sayers or waded through the novels of Màire, will delight in the cruel accuracy of 'The Poor Mouth.''
LITERARY REVIEW

'O'Brien's sense of comedy is an unfailing delight.'
SUNDAY TIMES

'Along with Joyce and Beckett, Flann O'Brien constitutes our trinity of great Irish writers.'
EDNA O'BRIEN

Note biographique

Flann O'Brien was one of the many pseudonyms of Brian O'Nolan, author of the classic novel 'At Swim-Two-Birds' and, under the name Myles na Gopaleen, writer of a celebrated satirical column in the Irish Times which appeared daily for almost thirty years. Highly praised by Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, amongst others, O'Brien is regarded as one of the great comic writers of the twentieth century. He died in 1966.

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