Poet
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Nuala Dhomhnaill 1952-... country: Ireland language: Irish |
Publications (selection): An Dealg Droighin (1981); Féar Suaithinseach (1984); Rogha Dánta (1986); Pharaoh’s Daughter (1990, Enlish and Irish); Feis (1991); The Astrakhan Cloak (1992, English and Irish); Selected Poems (1993, English and Irish); Cead Aighnis (1998); The Water Horse (1999, English and Irish). (1952) is widely regarded to be the most celebrated writer in Irish (Gaelic) today. In her work she combines the Gaelic tradition and mythology with a fully modern social awareness and a personal style. Within the rather conservative world of Gaelic poetry she is considered an innovator. Not only has she introduced many new concepts into a near-dead language, she also likes to weave present-day motifs into traditional themes. She is also the only Gaelic-language poet with a feminist message, strengthened, no doubt, by a prolonged stay abroad (she has lived in the Netherlands and in Turkey, and has a Turkish husband). She herself prefers not to use the word ‘feminism’ when discussing the themes of her poetry. Instead she talks about ‘women’s experiences’, which she feels to be more straightforward by far than what she describes as the ‘platonic’ discourse of male poetry. Ní Dhomhnaill has published five books of poetry in Irish, and as early as in 1990 was honoured with a collection of translations of her work into English by a splendid array of contemporary Irish poets, including Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, John Montague and Paul Muldoon. Since then she has published two more bilingual collections. |
