The Best of Benedict Kiely is a treasure trove of his best and most acclaimed stories, published to mark the centenary of the birth of this great twentieth-century Irish writer. Many of these stories were originally published in The New Yorker before appearing in four collections over a 24-year period during the writer's lifetime. They are quintessential Kiely; superbly crafted, mingling song, anecdote, myth, history and a powerful sense of place into an allusive storyline. They show Kiely's supreme gift in recording the feeling of lived life, pulsing with joys, disappointments and the accidental and deliberate digressions along the way. Colum McCann has observed in Kiely's work that '... there is really no such thing as an end, because the stories keep unfolding and influencing' and these classic Kiely stories, published together for the first time, will linger with the reader, young or old, long after the final sentence.

About the Author
Benedict Kiely (1919-2007) was born in County Tyrone, on 15 August 1919, and spent his formative years in Omagh. As a teenager, he felt the urge to become a writer and dreamed of the life of a scholar. He trained as a Jesuit priest but after a lengthy convalescence from a spinal ailment, he decided that the religious life was not for him and he took an arts degree at University College, Dublin. His first novel, Land Without Stars, was published in 1946, at which time he was a leader-writer on the Irish Independent. He spent almost fifteen years as literary editor of the Irish Press. Retiring from full-time journalism in the mid-1960s, he became a visiting professor of creative writing at several American universities, later lecturing at UCD. Kiely's regular contributions to RTE Radio's 'Sunday Miscellany' included short talks, mostly on literature and other Irish topics, for over a quarter of a century between the 1970s and 1990s. It was in this capacity that his mellifluous voice became so widely known. He was the author of ten novels and six collections of short stories, in addition to numerous works of non-fiction. He was awarded honorary doctorates by the National University of Ireland and Queen's University, Belfast. In 1996 he received the highest honour of Aosdana when he was elected a Saoi in recognition of his contribution to literature. After a short illness in early 2007, Benedict Kiely died in Dublin at the age of eighty-seven.


Book Information
ISBN 9781848407510
Author Benedict Kiely
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint New Island Books
Publisher New Island Books
Weight(grams) 360g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 27mm