O'Connor's translations spring from a nearly compulsive desire to breathe life into Ireland's past, to 'look back to look forward, ' as he once put it.
Frank O'Connor (1903-66) was an Irish writer of over 150 works, best known for his short stories and memoirs. The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award is named in his honor. Born and raised in Cork, in 1918 O'Connor joined the First Brigade of the Irish Republican Army and served in combat during the Irish War of Independence. He was befriended by George William Russell (Æ), Yeats, Lennox Robinson, F. R. Higgins and Augusta Gregory.
From 1937-39, he was the managing director of the Abbey Theatre. In 1950, he accepted invitations to teach in the United States, including at Stanford University, where many of his short stories had been published in The New Yorker and won great acclaim.
Gregory A. Schirmer is the author of books on Austin Clarke and William Trevor and of Out of What Began: A History of Irish Poetry in English. He edited After the Irish: An Anthology of Poetic Translation (Cork University Press, 2009). He is Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Mississippi, and divides his time between Mississippi and West Cork.
