Synopses & Reviews
Following a crippling depression and institutionalization, the writer “Desmond” wanders from his native Dublin around an increasingly unrecognizable Europe, and as far as the southern United States, assembling a patchwork of small stories, conversations, love affairs, memories, regrets, and confrontations: “the labyrinth of stories of people whose lives you touch . . . so that your mind becomes like a polychromatic Irish pub.” Whether a series of tragic postcards, a cubist novel, or a memoir shorn of its connective tissue, A Farewell to Prague stands as Desmond Hogan’s greatest achievement: a catalog of the moments that justify a life—or shine a light on its emptiness.
Synopsis
Following a crippling depression, a writer wanders from his native Dublin around an increasingly unrecognizable Europe in the years following the Cold War, assembling a patchwork of stories, conversations, love affairs, and regrets.
About the Author
Desmond Hogan was born in Ballinasloe, Ireland. He has published five novels as well as several books of stories and a collection of selected travel and review pieces. In 1971 he won the Hennessy Award, and in 1977 the Rooney Prize for Literature. He won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1980 and was awarded a DAAD Fellowship in Berlin in 1991.