This book is about the role that the imperfect, the disquieting and the dystopian are currently playing in the construction of Irish identities. All the essays assess identity issues that require urgent examination, problematize canonical definitions of Irishness and, above all, look at the ways in which the artistic output of the country has been altered by the Celtic Tiger phenomenon and its subsequent demise. Recent narrative from Ireland, principally published in the twenty-first century and/or at the end of the 1990s, is dealt with extensively. The authors examined include Eavan Boland, Mary Rose Callaghan, Peter Cunningham, Emma Donoghue, Anne Enright, Emer Martin, Lia Mills, Paul Muldoon, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Bernard O'Donoghue, Peter Sirr and David Wheatley.

Autorentext
Luz Mar González-Arias is Senior Lecturer in English and Irish Literatures at the University of Oviedo, Spain. She is the author of two monographs: Otra Irlanda (2000), and Cuerpo, mito y teoría feminista (1999). She researches in the areas of body theory and Medical Humanities as applied to the work of contemporary Irish women poets.

Inhalt
Introduction: The Imperfect as a Site of Contestation in Contemporary Ireland; Luz Mar González-Arias.- PART I: THE TIGER AND BEYOND: POLITICAL, SOCIAL AND LITERARY FISSURES.- 1. What Plenty Laid Bare! Ireland's Harsh Confrontation with Itself: 1999-2014; Ciarán Benson.- 2. Satiric Insights into Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland: The Case of Peter Cunningham's Capital Sins; Juan F. Elices.- 3. Understanding the Imperfect in John McGahern's First and Last Novels; Anita Morgan.- PART II: DISRUPTIONS RELIGION, FAMILY AND MARRIAGE.- 4. Hard Times and Sibling Songs: Sibling Relations in Contemporary Irish Literature; Patricia Coughlan.- 5. Psychological Resilience in Emma Donoghue's Room; Marisol Morales Ladrón.- 6. The Fallen Sex Revisited: Imperfect Celibacy in Mary Rose Callaghan's A Bit of a Scandal; Auxiliadora Pérez Vides.- PART III: EX-CENTRIC BODIES AND DISQUIETING SPACES.- 7. Form, Deformity: On Pathology and Poetics in Paul Muldoon; Rui Carvalho Homem.- 8. Imperfection as a Chance: Matrixial Borderspaces in Anne Enright; Hedwig Schwall.- 9. Monstrous Mothers and Mutant Others: Bodies Out of Place in Emer Martin's Baby Zero; Aida Rosende Pérez.- 10. Changing Places: The Imperfect City in Contemporary Irish Poetry; Lucy Collins.- PART IV: STEREOTYPES AND THE DISTORTION OF IRISHNESS.- 11. Irish Drinking Culture on the Screen; Rosa González-Casademont.- 12. Treading the Boards? Be Sure to Put on the Right Brogues! The Actor's Search for the Perfect Irish Accent; Shane Walshe.- PART V: UNBECOMING IRISH LITERATURE: THE INSIDE GAZE.- 13. 'Absolutely Imperfect': In Conversation with Lia Mills; Luz Mar González-Arias.- Index.-