Benedict Kiely Biography

Irish short-story writer, novelist, and critic, born in Dromore, Co. Tyrone. He began studying to be a Jesuit priest but, after a serious illness, he decided to leave the Society. He completed his education at University College, Dublin. Between 1945 and 1964 he worked as a journalist in Dublin, and then taught creative writing at universities in the USA until returning to Ireland in 1968. As a literary editor he was responsible for The Penguin Book of Irish Short Stories (1981) and The Small Oxford Book of Dublin (1983). Kiely's first published work was Counties of Contention (1945) in which he criticizes the creation of Northern Ireland. His other works of non-fiction include Poor Scholar (1947), a study of William Carleton, and Modern Irish Fiction: A Critique (1950). Kiely's fiction, particularly his short stories, belongs to the tradition of Frank O'Connor and Sean O'Faolain in the way it experiments with form and insists upon autobiographical content. His novels include Land without Stars (1946), Honey Seems Bitter (1952), Dogs Enjoy the Morning (1955), Nothing Happens in Carmincross (1985), and Proxopera (1977) which, like Val Mulkerns's Antiquities (1978), attacks the brutality of contemporary republicanism. Among his short-story collections are A Journey to the Seven Streams (1963), A Ball of Malt and Madame Butterfly (1973), The State of Ireland (1980), and A Letter to Peachtree (1987).