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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <?xml-stylesheet href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~d/styles/rss2full.xsl" type="text/xsl" media="screen"?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~d/styles/itemcontent.css" type="text/css" media="screen"?><rss xmlns:feedburner="http://rssnamespace.org/feedburner/ext/1.0" version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Blogcritics Category: Culture: Original Fiction</title> <link>http://blogcritics.org/archives/categories/culture_original_fiction.php</link> <description>A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously.</description> <language>en</language> <copyright>Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors</copyright> <lastBuildDate>Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:54:43 EDT</lastBuildDate> <docs>http://backend.userland.com/rss</docs> <generator>Blogcritics.org custom software</generator> <atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/bc/culture_original_fiction" type="application/rss+xml" /><feedburner:browserFriendly>This is an XML full-content feed. It isn't really intended for human consumption, but can easily and happily be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site.</feedburner:browserFriendly><item> <title>Book Review: <i>Crystal Bay</i> by Brandon Ford</title> <link>http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~3/314286918/225443.php</link> <author>Alex Hutchinson</author><description>An isolated writer is seduced by a bloodthirsty temptress.<br/> All of us have a watched at least one movie at the theater and walked away wondering, "What was the point?" Weak characters, a meandering storyline and empty scenery never capture our interest. This often leads to an ending so predictable that you often walk out, angry that you wasted ten dollars. These are the fatal flaws that define a bad movie....<br style="clear: both;"/> <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=ac93aee7f96474fdf889783abaa8ac42" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=ac93aee7f96474fdf889783abaa8ac42" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=3yGNvI"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=3yGNvI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=SEI09I"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=SEI09I" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~4/314286918" height="1" width="1"/></description> <category>Books</category><guid isPermaLink="false">78081@blogcritics.org</guid> <pubDate>Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:54:43 EDT</pubDate> <feedburner:origLink>http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/06/17/225443.php</feedburner:origLink></item> <item> <title>Free Book Giveaway: <em>The Host</em> by Stephenie Meyer</title> <link>http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~3/304682275/131057.php</link> <author>Lisa Damian</author><description>Free Book Giveaway Contest: Win a copy of The Host by Stephenie Meyer!<br/> The Hatchette Book Group publishers sent a shiny new hardcover edition of the The Host by Stephenie Meyer for a free giveaway. You may toss your name into the hat to enter this contest by filling out the entry form by Saturday, June 21, 2008. Please be sure to include your name and complete contact information for shipping purposes. In order to be...<br style="clear: both;"/> <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=c2dd0d0961fbb6fbd3fa3b794db54c35" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c2dd0d0961fbb6fbd3fa3b794db54c35" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=fnYHHI"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=fnYHHI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=r5jpJI"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=r5jpJI" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~4/304682275" height="1" width="1"/></description> <category>Books</category><guid isPermaLink="false">77611@blogcritics.org</guid> <pubDate>Wed, 4 Jun 2008 13:10:57 EDT</pubDate> <feedburner:origLink>http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/06/04/131057.php</feedburner:origLink></item> <item> <title>Book Review: <i>Unholy Domain</i> by Dan Ronco</title> <link>http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~3/300824714/174832.php</link> <author>Alex Hutchinson</author><description>A young man tries to escape his father's past only to find himself in the middle of a war over the ethics of technology.<br/> Daring, innovative, and predictive of ethical quandaries yet to arrive, Unholy Domain is a novel to be reckoned with. Author Dan Ronco utilizes his vast understanding of engineering and technology to give us a vision of the future well within the realm of possibility. This could be one of those rare occasions when we as a people could learn the...<br style="clear: both;"/> <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=e0ce0589c470986823b2c94bd164c1b3" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=e0ce0589c470986823b2c94bd164c1b3" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=hCrY7H"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=hCrY7H" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=TudB7H"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=TudB7H" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~4/300824714" height="1" width="1"/></description> <category>Books</category><guid isPermaLink="false">77331@blogcritics.org</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 29 May 2008 17:48:32 EDT</pubDate> <feedburner:origLink>http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/05/29/174832.php</feedburner:origLink></item> <item> <title>Book Review: <i>Janeology</i> by Karen Harrington</title> <link>http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~3/291926817/171625.php</link> <author>Alex Hutchinson</author><description>In Janeology a father is put on trial for allowing his wife to kill one of their children.<br/> A good book will use a strong first chapter to capture your interest but a great book will knock you on your ass in the first two sentences. Janeology by Karen Harrington doesn&rsquo;t let you escape the prologue without feeling the utmost sympathy for the main character. Tom has just lost one of his children to infanticide. The murderer was his...<br style="clear: both;"/> <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=820f8c7397a50bf56f9ae20fc3c91033" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=820f8c7397a50bf56f9ae20fc3c91033" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=1ywk3H"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=1ywk3H" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=Dik6SH"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=Dik6SH" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~4/291926817" height="1" width="1"/></description> <category>Books</category><guid isPermaLink="false">76962@blogcritics.org</guid> <pubDate>Fri, 16 May 2008 17:16:25 EDT</pubDate> <feedburner:origLink>http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/05/16/171625.php</feedburner:origLink></item> <item> <title>Author Interview: Kim Harrison</title> <link>http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~3/259343012/203656.php</link> <author>Lisa Damian</author><description>"The term urban fantasy has recently become popular, which suits me just fine. "<br/> Kim Harrison is the creator of the New York Times bestselling series about the Hollows, a seemingly ordinary Cincinnati suburb with one distinguishable difference &ndash; It is populated primarily by vampires, witches, weres, pixies, and other supernatural beings. In a follow up to my recent review of her latest novel, The Outlaw Demon Wails, Kim...<br style="clear: both;"/> <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=41850bb642f8a7ec069a1a440b8ec861" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=41850bb642f8a7ec069a1a440b8ec861" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=7ITgZZF"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=7ITgZZF" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=9FMAkzF"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=9FMAkzF" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~4/259343012" height="1" width="1"/></description> <category>Books</category><guid isPermaLink="false">75226@blogcritics.org</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:36:56 EDT</pubDate> <feedburner:origLink>http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/03/27/203656.php</feedburner:origLink></item> <item> <title>Peace in the Great Beyond to Arthur C. Clarke</title> <link>http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~3/254923131/094732.php</link> <author>Lisa Damian</author><description>Science fiction writer and visionary Sir Arthur C. Clarke dies at age 90.<br/> &quot;The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.&quot;- Arthur C. Clarke (Clarke&#39;s Second Law from his essay Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination)Legendary science fiction author Sir Arthur C. Clarke died March 19 at his home in the island nation of Sri Lanka. He celebrated his 90th...<br style="clear: both;"/> <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=9005f85664efc02fe2c15ec7a46d28bb" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=9005f85664efc02fe2c15ec7a46d28bb" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=01M9ieF"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=01M9ieF" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=nulKqlF"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=nulKqlF" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~4/254923131" height="1" width="1"/></description> <category>Books</category><guid isPermaLink="false">74972@blogcritics.org</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:47:32 EDT</pubDate> <feedburner:origLink>http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/03/20/094732.php</feedburner:origLink></item> <item> <title>Book Review: <i>The Samson Effect</i> by Tony Eldridge</title> <link>http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~3/226862558/171739.php</link> <author>Alex Hutchinson</author><description>Two scholars go on a whirlwind adventure to discover the truth behind a biblical mystery.<br/> Dr. Thomas Hamilton is a biblical scholar who has had a lifelong obsession with the story of Samson. His good friend Michael Sieff, an Israeli biblical linguist, finds a clue suggesting that Samson&rsquo;s mighty strength could have been the result of a botanical reaction in the human body. This discovery thrusts the two men on a whirlwind journey...<br style="clear: both;"/> <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=c0c5f08624db2ff31a57e79d2702df67" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c0c5f08624db2ff31a57e79d2702df67" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=yLjQUKD"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=yLjQUKD" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=umtpKhD"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=umtpKhD" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~4/226862558" height="1" width="1"/></description> <category>Books</category><guid isPermaLink="false">73418@blogcritics.org</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:17:39 EST</pubDate> <feedburner:origLink>http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/01/31/171739.php</feedburner:origLink></item> <item> <title><![CDATA[Presented By: Communicate with the team any time or place.]]></title> <link>http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~3/226862559/ht.php</link> <guid isPermaLink="false">c0c5f08624db2ff31a57e79d2702df67</guid> <description><div><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=c&amp;i=c0c5f08624db2ff31a57e79d2702df67">Communicate with the team any time or place.</a></div> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr><td rowspan="2" valign="top"><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=c&amp;i=c0c5f08624db2ff31a57e79d2702df67"><img src="http://images.pheedo.com/icon-2aeea1bbc39b4dcda035d060debcc9cf-1192220697.jpg"/></a></td><td rowspan="2">&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td valign="top">Adobe Acrobat 8 lets you instantly review, comment, mark up and share your thoughts and send a PDF to the whole team. Keep track of everyone's changes. All with the ease and security of Adobe Acrobat: a great tool that helps your business flow.</td></tr> <tr><td><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=c&amp;i=c0c5f08624db2ff31a57e79d2702df67">www.adobe.com</a></td></tr> </table> <div style="font-size:xx-small; padding-top: 1em;"><span style="border-top: 1px solid"> <br style="display:none"/> <a href="http://www.pheedo.com/">Ads by Pheedo</a> </span><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=v&amp;i=c0c5f08624db2ff31a57e79d2702df67"/> <br/> </div><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=8ckc5sD"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=8ckc5sD" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=4r9Xq1D"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=4r9Xq1D" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~4/226862559" height="1" width="1"/></description> <pubDate>Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:17:39 EST</pubDate> <feedburner:origLink>http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=c&i=c0c5f08624db2ff31a57e79d2702df67</feedburner:origLink></item> <item> <title>Interview With Bill Bryan, Author of <i> Keep It Real </i> Part Two</title> <link>http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~3/172312264/175939.php</link> <author>Scott Butki</author><description>"Since reality shows are so much cheaper to produce, they have proliferated like crabs at Woodstock."<br/> This is the second part of a two-part interview with Bill Bryan, author of Keep It Real.In the first part we talked about his career. For this part I focused more on questions related to this book.He also threw me a curve ball near the end which I had to address. Dang TV writers giving me more work to do. Grr...:)The book&rsquo;s acknowledgement...<br style="clear: both;"/> <img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=15755d4aa65261018addf0f89b4e2547"/><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=MVNgn0A"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=MVNgn0A" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=NmBENVA"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=NmBENVA" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~4/172312264" height="1" width="1"/></description> <category>Books</category><guid isPermaLink="false">69982@blogcritics.org</guid> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:59:39 EDT</pubDate> <feedburner:origLink>http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/10/19/175939.php</feedburner:origLink></item> <item> <title>The Great Iraq War Novel</title> <link>http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~3/151402340/190223.php</link> <author>Terence Clarke</author><description>It will come, and it will tell us the truth.<br/> There will come a day, and it will be soon, upon which a great novel of the Iraq war will be published. If you&rsquo;re an American fighting there, the war in Iraq is a clearly foolish endeavor in which you&#39;ve been sent to fight and possibly die for frivolously presented, very inscrutable reasons. Vietnam was like that, and that&rsquo;s one of...<br style="clear: both;"/> <img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=f91ff4f5431280936305bd7489ae2ae7"/><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=jQfXKtXk"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=jQfXKtXk" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=ySWE8ni4"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=ySWE8ni4" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~4/151402340" height="1" width="1"/></description> <category>Books</category><guid isPermaLink="false">68203@blogcritics.org</guid> <pubDate>Sun, 2 Sep 2007 19:02:23 EDT</pubDate> <feedburner:origLink>http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/09/02/190223.php</feedburner:origLink></item> <item> <title>Announcement: Short-content feeds</title> <link>http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~3/148554416/</link> <author>Phillip Winn</author><description>Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.<br style="clear: both;"/> <img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=483bf96d5cca8cf0098b4bb72a590986"/><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=z1WZx9Fr"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=z1WZx9Fr" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=sbjpkQtP"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=sbjpkQtP" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~4/148554416" height="1" width="1"/></description> <category>Administration</category><guid isPermaLink="false">0@blogcritics.org</guid> <pubDate>Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT</pubDate> <feedburner:origLink>http://blogcritics.org/</feedburner:origLink></item> <item> <title>The Troubles: Peace and the Future of Irish Writing</title> <link>http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~3/147124111/202425.php</link> <author>Terence Clarke</author><description>I consider it a privilege -- although it came as a big surprise to me to learn about it -- that I have written one of the very few novels that exist about the Irish in San Francisco. It was a surprise because the familial conversations in the book, the Catholicism, the manner of expression, the worrying about The Troubles in Ireland, the humor about the Irish and The Church and The Drink ... all that simply came from my childhood and what I heard at the dinner table. My Father in the Night was published in hard cover by Mercury House in 1991 and in soft cover by Ballantine Books a year or so later. It tells of eleven-year-old Patrick Pearse, known to everyone simply as Pearse, and his conflicted relationship with two men, his grandfather MJ and his father Michael. The Troubles in Ireland are at the center of this novel. The differing points of view toward this ages-long conflict on the part of the two older men supply the emotional tension that the boy Pearse (named by his father for one of the leaders of the Dublin Post Office takeover of 1916 that began the Irish civil war against the British) must negotiate. The center of the novel is a political issue, and a novel should never be a political tract. Those that exist principally for reasons of politics are soon forgotten, because they are so often poorly written and, far worse, irrelevant to the central purpose of the novel, which is to be an exploration of the soul&rsquo;s progress from ignorance to revelatory knowledge. I hope it&rsquo;s that kind of novel that I wrote. Novels as political manifestos are meaningless because they are always so short-sighted. But at least in part, this novel was an exercise for me in determining what I felt about the relationship between the British, the Irish, and the diaspora of Irish to the north American continent. When I wrote it, that entire process was still a major theme in the United States in what was being written about Ireland. It was the very subject itself of at least one hundred and fifty years of Irish-American writing and, for me, essential to my own book.Now things are changing. If you write a novel about Ireland in 2007, I wager that it will contain little about The Troubles, except as something in the memory. The Celtic Tiger, as Ireland is now sometimes called, is among the fastest growing economies in Europe, if not of the world. Ireland is -- imagine this! -- an economic power. Had politicians such as the Anglo-Irish Ian Paisley and the I.R.A. man Martin McGuinness appeared together ten years ago in the same place, it would have been to engage in a shoot-out. Now they are working together -- albeit testily -- to further Northern Ireland&rsquo;s future, and therefore that of the entire island.To be sure, there remains a big difference between the Irish Republic in the south and the British colony in Northern Ireland, and it&rsquo;s in the north that the old conflicts may continue. The peace there is a fragile one. If you go to Belfast, you still see politically charged murals from both sides, that are clearly intended to foment a fight, and bulwark-like fortresses that were once the redoubts of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the British police force in Northern Ireland. The whole thing could fall apart in a moment. The fortresses could be re-armed. But at least in this moment, the peace is holding and one hopes that it becomes a permanent feature of the cultural landscape in Ireland.But I worry, in a perverse sort of way, about what the Irish will write about if Paisley and McGuinness in fact bury their swords and Ireland and the British succumb to -- would you believe? -- mutual respect. If so, Irish writing may be in trouble because it will have lost the theme upon which its writers have based their greatest work for eight hundred years. The risings against the British have been one of the most fruitful and happy fields for Irish writers ever to till. This has been a very violent, but very private, haunted, and self-observant sort of struggle. Therefore it&rsquo;s been perfect for fiction. Indeed there is almost an affection in Irish literature for The Troubles. For a writer -- be you Liam O&rsquo;Flaherty, Sean O&rsquo;Faolin, Frank O&rsquo;Connor, Benedict Kiely, Edna O&rsquo;Brien, Marie Jones, Brendan Behan, James Joyce, Roddy Doyle, Brian Moore, John McGahern -- the constant plots against the British, and the failure of those plots, have been a source of love, heroism, mad bravery, sadness, and comedy that has almost no equal in literature anywhere. It came as a surprise to me recently, when I saw a production of John Millington Synge&rsquo;s astonishing 1907 play The Playboy of the Western World, that there is apparently no mention of the British anywhere in it. This is certainly a rarity in important Irish literature of the last several centuries. What will the Irish write about then if, Lord help us, there&rsquo;s peace in our time? <div id="authorbio">Terence Clarke is a San Francisco novelist, journalist, and film maker who writes about the arts.</div><br style="clear: both;"/> <img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=fb6341225a961c6f1c9ca271777e98b5"/><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=lqY9Wgz9"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=lqY9Wgz9" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=amNxaGub"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=amNxaGub" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~4/147124111" height="1" width="1"/></description> <category>Culture</category><guid isPermaLink="false">67832@blogcritics.org</guid> <pubDate>Wed, 22 Aug 2007 20:24:25 EDT</pubDate> <feedburner:origLink>http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/08/22/202425.php</feedburner:origLink></item> <item> <title><![CDATA[Presented By:]]></title> <link>http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~3/147124112/click.phdo</link> <guid isPermaLink="false">fb6341225a961c6f1c9ca271777e98b5</guid> <description><a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=fb6341225a961c6f1c9ca271777e98b5"><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=fb6341225a961c6f1c9ca271777e98b5"/></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=vjzHg1aC"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=vjzHg1aC" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?a=7tFeF5fw"><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~f/bc/culture_original_fiction?i=7tFeF5fw" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.blogcritics.org/~r/bc/culture_original_fiction/~4/147124112" height="1" width="1"/></description> <pubDate>Wed, 22 Aug 2007 20:24:25 EDT</pubDate> <feedburner:origLink>http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=fb6341225a961c6f1c9ca271777e98b5</feedburner:origLink></item> </channel> </rss>