Ireland is an island nation on the western edge of Europe, whose history of colonization, famine, and independence has produced a literary tradition of astonishing richness relative to its small population.
Irish literature punches far above its weight. James Joyce revolutionised the novel with Ulysses; his Dubliners captured the paralysis of Irish life with surgical precision. Ireland's writers — from Yeats to Beckett to contemporary voices — are united by a love of language and a gift for turning suffering into art.