No Laughing Matter: The Life and Times of Flann O’Brien

Flann O'Brien was born Brian O'Nolan in Strabane, Co. Tyrone, in 1911. He worked as a civil servant in Dublin for eighteen years, but as Myles na Gopaleen, his alter ego, he was the author of 'An Béal Bocht' and the legendary and hilarious column in 'The Irish Times', 'Cruiskeen Lawn'. 'At Swim-Two-Birds', his first novel, appeared in 1939 and was lauded by James Joyce, Graham Greene, Dylan Thomas and others. But his second, 'The Third Policeman', failed to find a publisher, and for many years Flann O'Brien wrote no more fiction in English, languishing as a cult figure in a city then regarded as a backwater. 'The Third Policeman' has since been acknowledged as one of the most important novels to come out of Ireland in the twentieth century but by the time he was rediscovered, Flann was drinking heavily and in poor health. He died 'rather unexpectedly', on 1 April 1966. Anthony Cronin's 'No Laughing Matter' was the first full-length biography of Flann O'Brien. Rich in background, anecdote and social history, it is an extraordinary portrait of a writer and his times, perceptive, sympathetic and authoritative. Kevin Barry's new foreword illuminates the importance of these two giants of Irish Literature.