The Book of Judas - A Poem

Kennelly, Brendan

ISBN 10: 1852241713 / ISBN 13: 9781852241711

Published by Bloodaxe Books, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1991

About this Item

400 Pages. 230x155mm.Original pictorial card covers. Sunlight fading to spine as usual, otherwise a fine copy without any library stamps, inscriptions, or other markings. Images available on request.

Seller Inventory # 005922

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Book of Judas - A Poem
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books, Newcastle upon Tyne
• Publication Date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1852241713
• ISBN 13: 9781852241711
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Irish Literature
  • Irish Poetry
  • Kerry

About this title

Synopsis

Brendan Kennelly’s Book of Judas, a 400-page epic poem in twelve parts, became the number one bestselling book in Ireland. As well as receiving rapturous reviews, Brendan Kennelly won the Sunday Independent/Irish Life Award for the book and earned the ultimate accolade of ‘Kerryman of the Year’. Not merely lost but irredeemable, Kennelly’s bitterly articulate Judas speaks, dreams and murmurs – of past and present, history and myth, good and evil, of men, women and children, and of course money – until we realise that the unspeakable perpetrator of the apparently unthinkable, in penetrating the icy reaches of his own world, becomes a sly, many-voiced critic of ours. The full-sized Book of Judas is no longer available, usurped by The Little Book of Judas, a distillation of that literary monster, purged to its traitorous essence.

About the Author

Brendan Kennelly is one of Ireland’s most distinguished and best loved poets, as well as a renowned teacher and cultural commentator. Born in 1936 in Ballylongford, Co. Kerry, he was Professor of Modern Literature at Trinity College, Dublin for over 30 years, and retired from teaching in 2005. He now lives in Listowel, Co. Kerry. He has published more than 30 books of poetry, including Familiar Strangers: New & Selected Poems 1960-2004 (2004), which includes the whole of his book-length poem The Man Made of Rain (1998). He is best-known for two controversial poetry books, Cromwell, published in Ireland in 1983 and in Britain by Bloodaxe in 1987, and his epic poem The Book of Judas (1991), which topped the Irish bestsellers list: a shorter version was published by Bloodaxe in 2002 as The Little Book of Judas. His third epic, Poetry My Arse (1995), did much to outdo these in notoriety. All these remain available separately from Bloodaxe, along with his more recent titles: Glimpses (2001), Martial Art (2003), Now (2006), Reservoir Voices (2009), The Essential Brendan Kennelly: Selected Poems, edited by Terence Brown and Michael Longley, with audio CD (2011), and Guff (2013). His Journey into Joy: Selected Prose, edited by Åke Persson, was published by Bloodaxe in 1994, along with Dark Fathers into Light, a critical anthology on his work edited by Richard Pine. John McDonagh’s critical study Brendan Kennelly: A Host of Ghosts was published in The Liffey Press’s Contemporary Irish Writers series in 2004.