Liam OFlaherty

Born Mar. 19, 1897, in the Aran Islands, Galway Bay, Ireland. Irish writer.

O’Flaherty was educated at University College, Dublin, and served in the civil war of 1922–23 on the Republican side. His works have reflected the national confusion resulting from the defeat of the Republicans. The theme of the novels The Informer (1925; Russian translation, 1927), The Martyr (1927), and Insurrection(1950) is the national liberation movement. The revolutionaries, however, are depicted as spiritually bankrupt. O’Flaherty was more convincing in his collections of short stories about the hard lives of the country people, Spring Sowing (1926; Russian translation, 1929) and The Tent (1926; Russian translation, 1928), and in his best novel, Famine (1937); the heroes of the last are conscious participants in the social struggle.