Desmond Hogan

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Desmond Hogan (born 10 December 1950) is an Irish writer.

Hogan was born in Ballinasloe in east County Galway, Ireland. His father was a draper. Educated locally at St. Grellan’s Boys’ National School and St. Josephs’s College, Garbally Park. Some of his earliest work was published in The Fountain, the Garbally college annual.

After leaving school, Hogan travelled to France, ending up in Paris just after the student riots of 1968 . He later studied at University College Dublin, where he received a BA in 1972 and an MA in 1973.

In 1971 he won the Hennessy Award. Along with Neil Jordan formed the Irish Writers' Co-operative. While in Dublin, he worked as a street actor and had a number of plays - A Short Walk to the Sea, Sanctified Distances, and The Squat - produced in the Abbey Theatre and the Project Arts Centre. RTÉ and BBC Radio broadcast some of his plays, including Jimmy. He also published stories in small magazines like Adam and the Transatlantic Review.

Later he moved to London, living in Catford and Hounslow and then later as a lodger in the Hampstead home of Anthony Farrell, a young Irish publisher. At this time, he gave evening classes. Friends and acquaintances from this period included: writer Jaci Stephen, Kazuo Ishiguro and his partner, Lorna. Hogan also participated in poetry and literature readings held at Bernard Stone's Turrett Bookshop on Floral Street in Covent Garden.

His debut novel, The Ikon-Makers, was written in 1974 and published in 1976.

In 1977, he was the recipient of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. In 1978, he participated in the Santa Cruz Writers Conference. In the early 1980s, Hogan was represented by the Deborah Rogers agency, which also had Peter Carey, Bruce Chatwin, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie on its books. In 1980, he won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for his Diamonds at the Bottom of the Sea collection of short stories. In 1981, he appeared in Granta next to Angela Carter and Russell Hoban.

In 1989, Hogan left London and was a Hudson Strode Fellow at the University of Alabama. Returning to London, he travelled to and spent time in Amsterdam, Berlin and Prague. In 1991, Hogan was awarded a place on the DAAD (German Academic Exchange) Berlin Artists' Programme fellowship which enabled him to live in that city.

Hogan returned to Ireland in 1995, living in Clifden, Co. Galway. For a period, he lived in an old caravan in Co. Limerick along North Kerry/West Limerick border. In 1997, he lectured in short fiction at the University of California, San Diego.

He currently resides near a small village in Co. Kerry. He was a judge in the 2005 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize worth €50,000.

Hogan features in a number of major anthologies of modern Irish literature. Colm Tóibín has identified 'Winter Swimmers' as one of his finest stories. According to the Literary Editor of The Observer, Robert McCrum, Hogan is one of "one of Ireland's finest writers". Fellow Irish author, Colum McCann, claims that Hogan, along with Benedict Kiely, is one of two Irish writers who have influenced him greatly .

[edit] Novels

The Ikon Maker

Dublin, Co-Op Books, 1976
London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, 1979, ISBN 0-904613-55-0
New York: Braziller, 1979, ISBN 0-8076-0929-3
London: Pulsiver, 1987, ISBN 0-948849-00-2 (PB)
London: Faber and Faber, 1993, ISBN 0-571-16768-3 (PB)

The Leaves on Grey

London, Hamish Hamilton, 1980, ISBN 0-241-10364-9
New York: Braziller, 1980, ISBN 0-8076-0948-X
Thorndike Press, USA, 1980 ISBN 0-89621-258-0 (Large Type)
London: Pan Books, 1981, ISBN 0-330-26287-4

A Curious Street

London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984, ISBN 0-241-10758-X
New York: Braziller, 1984, ISBN 0-8076-1099-2 (HB)
London: Pan, 1985, ISBN 0-241-10758-X (PB)
- Published in German as: Eine merkwürdige Straße, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997, ISBN 3-518-40827-5

A New Shirt

London: Hamish Hamilton, 1986
London: Faber and Faber, 1987, ISBN 0-571-14911-1

Farewell to Prague

London: Faber and Faber, 1995, ISBN 0-571-17427-2

[edit] Short Story collections

Diamonds at the Bottom of the Sea and Other Stories

London: Hamish Hamilton, 1979, ISBN 0-241-10123-9 (HB)
New York: Braziller, 1980, ISBN 0-8076-0934-X (HB)

Children of Lir: Stories from Ireland

London: Hamish Hamilton, 1981, ISBN 0-241-10608-7
New York: Braziller, 1981.

Stories: the Diamonds at the Bottom of the Sea, Children of Lir

London: Picador, 1982, ISBN 0-330-26624-1 (PB)

The Mourning Thief and Other Stories

London, Faber and Faber, 1987

Lebanon Lodge

London: Faber and Faber, 1988
London: Faber and Faber, 1989, ISBN 0-571-15313-5 (PB)

A Link With the River. Stories

[US edition of The Mourning Thief and Lebanon Lodge]
New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1989, ISBN 0-374-18461-5 (HB), ISBN 0-374-53003-3 (PB)

Elysium: Stories

Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-351-02817-2

Lark's Eggs: New and Selected Stories

Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2005, ISBN 1-84351-071-5

[edit] Travel Writing

The Edge of the City: A Scrapbook 1976-91

Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1993, ISBN 1-874675-03-1
London: Faber & Faber, 1993, ISBN 0-571-16881-7

[edit] Plays

A Short Walk to the Sea (1976)

staged by the Abbey Theatre, Dublin on 20 October 1976.
published with Paschal Finnan's The Swine and the Potswalloper, by Co-Op Books, Dublin in 1979.

Sanctified Distances (1976)

staged by the Abbey Theatre, Dublin on 9 December 1976.

The Squat (1976)

Performed at the Project Arts Centre's Festival, Dublin in 1976.

The Mourning Thief (TV)

his first television play.

[edit] Contributions and introductions in edited volumes, journals, magazines, etc.

in: Kevin Casey (ed.), Winter's Tales From Ireland 2, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1972, ISBN 0-7171-0592-X

"The Birth of Laughter", in Joseph Hone (ed), Irish Ghost Stories, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977, ISBN 0-241-89680-0

"Southern Birds", in: Granta (1980) 3, ISBN 0-14-014577-X

in: T. J. Binding (ed.), Firebird 1: Writing Today, London: Penguin/Allen Lane, 1982.

"Alan’s Novel", in: Robin Robertson (ed.), Firebird 3, London: Penguin, 1984, ISBN 0-14-006797-3

Introduction to Kate O’Brien’s, Without my cloak, London: Virago, 1984, ISBN 0-86068-760-0 pbk (also Harmondsworth: Penguin 1987, ISBN 0-14-016155-4 and London: Virago, 2001, ISBN 0-86068-760-0)

"The Tipperary Fanale", in: Judy Cooke & Elizabeth Bunster (eds.), The Best of Fiction Magazine, London: J.M. Dent, 1986, pp. 236-249, ISBN 0-460-02464-7

"Guy "Micko" Delaney" (novelette), in: Robin Baird-Smith (ed.), Winter’s Tales, New Series: 4, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988, pp. 21-45, ISBN 0-312-02480-0

"The cold wind and the warm", in: Alberto Manguel & Craig Stephenson (eds), In another part of the forest : an anthology of gay short fiction, New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1994, ISBN 0-517-88156-X

David Marcus (ed.), Alternative Loves: Irish Gay and Lesbian Stories, Dublin: Martello Books, 1994, ISBN 1-86023-001-6

"Jimmy", in: David Leavitt & Mark Mitchell (eds.), The Penguin Book Of Gay Short Stories, New York: Viking, 1994, ISBN 0-670-85152-3 (republished in 2004, ISBN 0-14-101005-3)

"A Curious Street", in: Dermot Bolger (ed.), The Vintage Book of Contemporary Irish Fiction, New York: Vintage, 1995, ISBN 0-679-76546-8

"Afternoon", in: Steve MacDonagh (ed.), Brandon Book of Irish Short Stories, Dingle: Brandon, 1998, ISBN 0-86322-237-4

"A country dance", in: Colm Tóibín (ed.), The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction, London: Penguin, 1999, ISBN 0-14-029849-5 and ISBN 0-670-89108-8

"The bombs", in: John Somer and John J. Daly (eds.), Anchor Book of New Irish Writing: The New Gaelach Ficsean, Anchor, 2000, ISBN 0-385-49889-6

"Eine seltsame Straße", in: Dirck Linck (ed.), Sodom ist kein Vaterland. Literarische Streifzüge durch das schwule Europa, Berlin: Querverlag, 2001, pp. 175-182, ISBN 3-89656-066-2

"Airedale", in: William Trevor (ed.), The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002, ISBN 0-19-280193-7

Andrew O'Hagan and Colm Tóibín, New Writing 11, Picador 2002, ISBN 0-330-48597-0

"Barnacle Geese", in: Sebastian Barker (ed.), The London Magazine, June/July 2004, ISSN 0024-6085

"Iowa", in: Sebastian Barker (ed.), The London Magazine, February/March 2005, ISSN 0024-6085

"Rose of Lebanon", in: Rebecca Bengal (ed.), American Short Fiction, Issue 33, Winter 2006, ISSN 1051-4813

"Shelter", in: Sebastian Barker (ed.), The London Magazine, February/March 2005, ISSN 0024-6085

"The Hare's Purse", in: Stacey Swann, Rebecca Bengal, Jill Meyers (ed.), American Short Fiction, Issue 38, Summer 2007, ISSN 1051-4813

[edit] Readings

1970s: Participated in readings in The Sarsfield Bar, Rutland Street. Limerick. Organised by John Liddy.
26 July 1989: Galway Arts Centre, Galway Arts Festival.
2002: Sean Dunne Literary festival
21-22 September 2002: Annual International Frank O'Connor Festival of the Short Story
8 July 2004. Dublin. Launch of Munster Literature Centre journal Southword.
2004: Galway County Library
20 April 2005: Cúirt International Festival of Literature, Galway. Along with Ronan Bennett.

[edit] Appreciation

Paul Deane, "The Great Chain of Irish Being Reconsidered: Desmond Hogan's A Curious Street", Notes on Modern Irish Literature, vol. 6, 1994, pp. 39-47.

Theo D’Haen, "Desmond Hogan and Ireland’s Postmodern Past", in Joris Duytschaever/Gert Lernout (eds.), History and Violence in Anglo-Irish Literature, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988, pp. 79-84.

Theo D’Haen, "Desmond Hogan and Ireland’s Postmodern Past", in Birgit Bramsback/Martin Croghan (eds.), Anglo-Irish and Irish Literature: Aspects of Language and Culture, Uppsala: Uppsala University, 1988, vol II, pp. 137-142.

Jerry Nolan, "Travelling With Desmond Hogan: Writing Beyond Ireland", ABEI Journal - The Brazilian Journal of Irish Studies, Special Issue No. 5, June 2003.

Susan Rochette-Crawley, "'The Awkward Grace of a Legend:' Violence and Transfiguration in Desmond Hogan's The Children of Lir".