Anne Fogarty and Eugene O’Brien (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Twenty-First-Century Irish Writing, New York: Routledge, 2025, 465 p.

Abstract

Published in 2025, The Routledge Companion to Twenty-First-Century Irish Writing explores the literary production of Ireland in the first quarter of the century by tracing contemporary works across traditional genres, cross-genres and emerging modes that defy generic borders. The collection of initial critical readings aims to examine the cultural momentum and the “energies and blockages” that influence Irish literary works within their sociopolitical contexts (1). In doing so, the collection embraces an “abandonment of fixities” (3) and variety in the cultural sphere, accounting for the plurality of human experience, uncertainty and larger societal issues at play in present-day Ireland embedded in a global frame (6). Thus, the collection addresses modern concerns, such as diversity in terms of gender, race and sexuality, multilingual realities, ecology and the non-human turn, relationships of proximity and distance between local and global perspectives and many more. Several chapters respond by emphasizing the importance of relational viewpoints, plural representation, collaborative efforts and community amidst the contextual fixtures of late capitalism and neoliberal ideology. Significantly, the companion stands as a testament to the “provocative, engaging and accomplished works of art being produced in such quantity and with such élan” in Ireland today (7). Undoubtedly, university students and scholars across contemporary Irish literary fields can find this companion useful considering its scope and the quality of the arguments.