Frank O’Connor

Cork, reading and political experience

Born Michael Francis O’Donovan in Cork, O’Connor left school at fourteen. Daniel Corkery became a mentor and encouraged his interest in Irish. Interned during the Civil War in 1922, he later turned against political violence. He worked as a librarian until 1938.

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Stories beside translation

Guests of the Nation appeared in 1931. Alongside his stories he translated Irish poetry, including The Midnight Court. A Golden Treasury of Irish Poetry, made with David Greene, appeared in 1967.

Translation keeps another writer’s language and contribution in view. It is a different responsibility from inventing a new story, even when both depend on the rhythm and emphasis of an individual voice.

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Theatre, journalism and travel

He joined the Abbey Theatre’s board in the 1930s and wrote plays, some with Hugh Hunt. In the 1940s he edited poetry for The Bell and wrote socially critical journalism. Professional exclusion and censorship accompanied these years. He later lived and taught in England and the United States.

The working life crossed institutions as well as genres. A theatre board, a magazine and a classroom each gave writing a different public setting; none alone represents the whole career.

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Autobiography and an argument about form

An Only Child was published in 1961. His 1962 University of Dublin doctorate was honorary.

In his 1957 Paris Review interview with Anthony Whittier, he distinguished the short story’s suggestion of continuing life from the sustained creation of it in a novel.

He died in Dublin in 1966. The unfinished sequel My Father’s Son appeared posthumously in 1968.

His account of form is a writer’s argument, open to disagreement. It remains useful because it directs attention to what a narrative selects and what it lets the reader imagine beyond its edges.

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