Desmond Hogan

Desmond Hogan (born 10 December 1950) is an Irish writer. Awarded the 1977 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and 1980 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, his oeuvre comprises novels, plays, short stories and travel writing.

The Cork Examiner said: "Like no other Irish writer just now, Hogan sets down what it's like to be a disturbed child of what seems a Godforsaken country in these troubled times." The Boston Globe said there "is something mannered in Hogan's prose, which is festooned with exotic imagery and scattered in sentence fragments."

A contemporary of Bruce Chatwin, Ian McEwan, Peter Carey, Salman Rushdie and a close friend of Kazuo Ishiguro, he has since vanished off the literary scene.

Biography Hogan was born in Ballinasloe in east County Galway. His father was a draper. In 1978, he participated in the Santa Cruz Writers Conference. In the early 1980s, Hogan was represented by Deborah Rogers' literary agency, which also had Peter Carey, Bruce Chatwin, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie on its books. Suspicious of the telephone, he prefers to communicate using postcards.

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)

Legacy Hogan features in a number of major anthologies of modern Irish literature.

William Trevor included him in The Oxford Book of Irish Stories and Colm Tóibín selected his story "Winter Swimmers" for The Penguin Book of Irish Writing.

He appears in the anthology Best European Fiction 2012, edited by Aleksandar Hemon, with a preface by Nicole Krauss (Dalkey Archive Press).

Another Irish writer Colum McCann, claims that Hogan, along with Benedict Kiely, is one of two Irish writers who have influenced him greatly.

Joyce Carol Oates, an American writer, much admires his story "Winter Swimmers".

Awards and honours 1971 Hennessy Award 1977 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature 1980 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize

List of works Novels The Ikon Maker Dublin, Co-Op Books, 1976 London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, 1979, New York: Braziller, 1979, London: Pulsiver, 1987, (PB) London: Faber and Faber, 1993, (PB) The Leaves on Grey London, Hamish Hamilton, 1980, New York: Braziller, 1980, Thorndike Press, USA, 1980 (Large Type) London: Pan Books, 1981, A Curious Street London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984, New York: Braziller, 1984, (HB) London: Pan, 1985, (PB) Published in German as: Eine merkwürdige Straße, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997, A New Shirt London: Hamish Hamilton, 1986 London: Faber and Faber, 1987, A Farewell to Prague London: Faber and Faber, 1995, Champaign, London, Dublin: Dalkey Archive Press, 2013,

Short story collections Diamonds at the Bottom of the Sea and Other Stories London: Hamish Hamilton, 1979, (HB) New York: Braziller, 1980, (HB) Children of Lir: Stories from Ireland London: Hamish Hamilton, 1981, New York: Braziller, 1981. Stories: the Diamonds at the Bottom of the Sea, Children of Lir London: Picador, 1982, (PB) The Mourning Thief and Other Stories London, Faber and Faber, 1987 Lebanon Lodge London: Faber and Faber, 1988 London: Faber and Faber, 1989, (PB) A Link With the River. Stories [US edition of The Mourning Thief and Lebanon Lodge] New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1989, (HB), (PB) Elysium: Stories Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1995, Lark's Eggs: New and Selected Stories Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2005, Old Swords and other stories Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2009, The House of Mourning and Other Stories Champaign, London, Dublin: Dalkey Archive Press, 2013, The History of Magpies Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2017,

Travel writing The Edge of the city: A Scrapbook 1976–91 Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1993, London: Faber & Faber, 1993,

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. The Ikon Maker (1980) staged by Green Fields and Far Away Theatre Company, touring UK 1980.

Contributions and introductions in edited volumes, journals, magazines, etc. in: Kevin Casey (ed.), Winter's Tales From Ireland 2, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1972,

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

"Southern Birds", in: Granta (1980) 3,

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,

Introduction to Kate O'Brien's, Without my cloak, London: Virago, 1984, pbk (also Harmondsworth: Penguin 1987, and London: Virago, 2001, )

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

"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,

"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,

David Marcus (ed.), Alternative Loves: Irish Gay and Lesbian Stories, Dublin: Martello Books, 1994,

"Jimmy", in: David Leavitt & Mark Mitchell (eds.), The Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories, New York: Viking, 1994, (republished in 2004, )

"A Curious Street", in: Dermot Bolger (ed.), The Vintage Book of Contemporary Irish Fiction, New York: Vintage, 1995,

"Afternoon", in: Steve MacDonagh (ed.), Brandon Book of Irish Short Stories, Dingle: Brandon, 1998,

"A country dance", in: Colm Tóibín (ed.), The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction, London: Penguin, 1999, and

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

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

"Airedale", in: William Trevor (ed.), The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002,

Andrew O'Hagan and Colm Tóibín, New Writing 11, Picador 2002,

"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