Dec
03
2021
 

Make sure you get your orders in by the following dates to ensure delivery before Christmas! Deliveries Within Ireland & NI: Order by 17th December 2021 Deliveries to UK: Order by 13th December 2021 Deliveries to Rest of Europe: Order by 13th December 2021 Deliveries to USA: Order by 8 December 2021 Deliveries to Rest of World: Order by 2 December 2021 All delivery times listed are in line with An Post. Place your order soon to make sure you don’t miss out on your holiday reads! And make sure to have a look at our Christmas Shop for 15% off selected titles.

A Yeats Journey by Joseph M. Hassett author of Yeats Now published by The Lilliput Press
Nov
25
2021
 

I was bitten by the Yeats bug at the fourth annual Yeats Summer School in Sligo, Ireland, in 1963. The opening ceremony in neighbouring Drumcliff Church was magical. Even a fledgling student knew the ringing lines in which Yeats declared, Under bare Ben Bulben’s head In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid. An ancestor was rector there… I could not have foreseen that fifty-six years later I would have the honour of delivering the opening address at the sixtieth Yeats Summer School to an audience at Drumcliff Church that included the great-great-great-granddaughters of the ancestor referred to in Yeats’s poem, Reverend John Yeats, who was Rector at Drumcliff from 1811 to 1846. The feeling that night…

Oct
08
2021
 

Irish publishing takeover at Cheltenham Literature Festival 2021   For the first time, the Lilliput Press and New Island Books have made the historic move of bringing a showcase of Irish-published literary talent – the Shebeen Series – to The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival 2021 as a representation of the industry and the best of Irish writing.   With the generous support of the Arts Council of Ireland, and in partnership with the Cheltenham Literature Festival, this exciting event sees two of Ireland’s most prestigious and long-standing publishers join together to take over a stage for a full afternoon at the world’s oldest literature festival. Irish publishing houses have never before been…

Sep
17
2021
 

A compilation of literary events. Join The Lilliput Press this evening at 6:30pm for a night of literary celebration as part of Culture Night 2021. The Lilliput Press is proud to present a video compilation of the highlights of our online literary events throughout 2021. This compilation will feature critically acclaimed authors such as Adrian Duncan, Declan Murphy, Joseph Hassett, and Martin Shaw. Join us to listen to the featured in-conversation guests, including writer Cathy Sweeney, Birdwatch Ireland’s Niall Hatch, director Alan Gilsenan, actor Lisa Dwan, singer Tara Erraught, poets Paula Meehan and Teri Cross Davis, writer and documentary maker Manchán Magan, and publisher at Lilliput Press, Antony Farrell. Watch online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K4ssz-a_pQ

Jan
20
2021
 

I am American, but I lived in China for eight years, in Shanghai and Kunming. Kunming is the capital of Yunnan, a mountainous province that is home to the China side of the Old Silk Road and where the people often said:     天高皇帝远 Tiān gāo, huángdì yuan Heaven is high and the emperor is far away   My time in Yunnan was memorable but brief. The lion’s share of those years in China was lived in Shanghai. Shanghai, 上海 (Above Sea; Upon the Sea): a city that is both sinking and flooding – expected to be underwater by 2050.   I write this from California where fires of a season like no other in history are still burning and lockdown orders are the strictest since spring. 1. ~Space~ Cicadas  Dew-rinsed: their pure notes carry far. Windblown: as dry, fasting leaves are blown.  Chirr after chirr, as if in unison. But each perches on…

Dec
07
2020
 

In 1961 J.P. Donleavy published a stage play called Fairytales of New York; this mutated into a 341-page novel released in September 1973 titled A Fairy Tale of New York. On 17 November 1987 Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl, with Steve Lillywhite, produced a single that was to became the most celebrated Christmas song on the planet. In December 2020 a cancel culture, combatted by Nick Cave, bowdlerised its lyrics while Johnny Depp’s documentary film on MacGowan is also being screened. If you google A Fairy Tale of New York, you will find Donleavy’s comically anarchic original novel available as an ebook on the website hosted by The Lilliput Press. When MacGowan visited J.P. Donleavy…

Oct
19
2020
 

 A billion balconies facing the sun; still, it means a final goodbye to wars and ideologies…   JG Ballard, Cocaine Nights, (1996)  XI Hails a Historic Free Trade Move / APEC summit endorses route to promote economic integration in Asia-Pacific  The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit yesterday opened a route toward a vast free trade area in the region, host Xi Jinping said, calling it a historic step…   Besides accounting for more than fifty percent of the world’s gross domestic product, 21-member APEC also makes up nearly half of world trade and 40 percent of the Earth’s population. The APEC leaders also endorsed a proposal to work more closely to combat official corruption, Xi said.  Shanghai Daily, cover story, Wednesday 12…

Oct
12
2020
 

Chimney Blown Up  A 206-metre high chimney owned by Baosteel was blown up on Monday. The structure was the tallest ever to have been blown up in Asia. The chimney, which weighed 1,500 tons, took just two minutes to demolish. The structure was demolished because it was no longer needed.  Shanghai Daily, Metro section, Wednesday 5 November 2014  1. Babylon: Shanghai 2014  Years ago I walked into the Pergamon museum in Berlin. I entered a room and looked up at the Ishtar gate. The effect it had was made up of conflicting feelings and a posture, as I scanned the images on the bricks and the archway. I leaned back and kept staring. I wanted to approach it and to go through it – and to keep a distance at the…

Jul
15
2020
 

Post-China Post 2 By 鲁科 It was August in 2015. I had been in the country a year. The apartment I lived in with two flatmates had a long, curving balcony, hugging half our shared space like a visor around a face. From it we looked out at a nightscape of southwest Shanghai, at many lights and different neighbourhoods, but few landmarks. A pair of towers in Xuhui that were nicknamed the ‘Lipsticks’ could be seen from it, but little else that you could put a name to. It was almost irresistible to smoke there. Cigarettes costing nothing, we would leave packs on the loose marble shelf with lighters, and indiscriminately take from them. This…