Hungry Words: Images of Famine in the Irish Canon

Hungry Words re-evaluates the authors and texts generally recognised as the 'canon' of Irish literature in the light of newly-identified famine discourse. Each essay focuses on the ways Irish authors with varying claims to canonical status affect and are affected by the literary discourse which emerged from the Great Famine. The anthology further illuminates not only the cultural impact of the famine, but the nature of the canon itself and the ideologies used to determine which authors and texts…