The first novel to be banned in Ireland, The House of Gold is a rare perspective on the Irish at a major turning point in their history. The House of Gold in a turbulent post-Civil War town in the West of Ireland where the old ascendancy has been replaced by a corrupt native elite headed by the avaricious Ramon Mor Costello and his clerical accomplices. His exotically beautiful wife is the catalyst for a series of violent events that lead to an unexpected climax. Greed, priestly lusts, sexual frustration, alcoholism, and murder are themes woven together in this compelling tale by Liam...

Diary of an Ant is the first English language translation of Cin lae seangain agus scealta eile, the critically acclaimed, award-winning collection of short stories by Dublin-born author Tomas Mac Siomoin. With his cultural roots in Ireland 's Gaelic West, Mac Siomoin takes a darkly humorous look at the failure and the innate dishonesty of most inter-human relating against a backdrop of ultimate absurdity that he sees as underlying all human experience."

Science fiction, medievalism and corporate intrigue combine in "The Cartographer's Apprentice." An Irish scientist, employed by the multinational Martel, discovers and tries to exploit the secret of a strange Catalan village in this formidable work of metafiction. The Cartographer's Apprentice is a translation from the Irish Gaelic of "An Tionscadal," winner of the 2006 Oireachtas award. It has been described as a "radical new departure in Irish fiction."

Three wildly imaginative essays by Irish satirists Jonathan Swift, Liam O'Flaherty, and Tomas Mac Siomoin. Written in three different centuries, they propose grotesque and outrageous solutions to the social problems created by the established political order, especially unemployment and austerity. These essays entertain and shock while focusing attention on those very problems."

Originally published in Irish Gaelic, "Is Stacey Pregnant?" is a 21st century rebirth of Orwell's famous Animal Farm pigs. Mac Siomoin's porkies preside over a brave new world of popular powerlessness. Celebrity gossip, inane talk shows and, above all, the death of meaningful communication, combine in an apocalyptic vision of Irish society, trundling along in reverse gear towards a destination that is as unconventional as it is unexpected. Darkly humorous and provocative, its cold satirical eye exposes the murky machinations of the political class. "Is Stacey Pregnant?" is the definitive...

Poetry runs deep in Inishmore's O Direain family. "A Woman of Aran," a distinguished collection of poems by Maire Aine Ni Dhireain, niece of Mairtin O Direain, has just been published by Nuascealta. The island's landscape is evoked by the charcoal drawings of Cathal Poirteir and the poems' original Irish is accompanied by Tomas Mac Siomoin's English translations of them. The poems of "A Woman of Aran" span a period stretching from the traditional Inishmore into which she was born through the years of her lengthy exile and, eventually, to her return to the island of her birth. She expresses in...