Poet and playwright, born in Dublin, Ireland. He studied at University College Dublin, and spent 15 years in England as a journalist before returning to Dublin in 1937. The Vengeance of Fionn, the first of 18 books of verse, was published in 1917. His Collected Poems were published in 1974. He was also a noted playwright and an adherent of verse drama, promoted through the Dublin Verse-Speaking Society which he formed in 1941. His first novel, The Bright Temptation (1932), was banned in Ireland until 1954.
Bibliography
Novels
The Survivors of the Crossing - 1964
The Meeting Point - 1967
Storm of Fortune - 1973
The Bigger Light - 1975
The Prime Minister - 1977
Proud
Empires - 1988
The Origin of Waves - 1997 (winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize)
The Question - 1999 (nominated for a Governor General's Award in 2000)
The
Polished Hoe - 2002 (winner of the Giller Prize)
Short stories
Amongst Thistles and Thorns - 1965
When He Was Free and Young and He Used to Wear Silks - 1971
When Women Rule - 1985
Nine Men Who Laughed - 1986
In This
City 1992
There Are No Elders - 1993
Choosing His Coffin - 2003
Non-fiction
Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack 1980
Public Enemies: Police Violence and Black Youth - 1992
A Passage Back Home: A Personal Reminiscence of Samuel Selvon - 1994
Pigtails 'n' Breadfruit - 1999
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