Her mother, who wrote vivid versions of old Irish folk tales, once said of the Irish Civil War: 'In those days... fear kept you from sleeping, but also from getting fat or bored.' Her father was Director of Publicity for the IRA during that savage conflict. He made bombs. A brilliant writer, his first book of stories was banned and he was summoned by his old IRA comrades to be court-martialled for writing it. He became one of Ireland's most celebrated writers and a radical dissident during the 1940s, challenging Church and State for their betrayal of the people's needs. His affairs with Elizabeth Bowen and many other women were betrayals of a more intimate kind. This was the backdrop to Julia O'Faolain's childhood. Her life is filled with great characters: Frank O'Connor, Paul Henry, Garret Fitzgerald, Hubert Butler, Patrick Kavanagh and Richard Ellman; and later, in their villas outside Florence, Harold Acton and Violet Trefusis, along with a cast...

1878: Pope Pius IX dies, after a misguided papacy that has stamped out liberalism, centralized papal power and witnessed the Pope's declaration of Infallibility. The Judas Cloth is told from the standpoint of Pius's son Nicola Santi, an orphan unaware of his scandalous paternity, who becomes a priest intent on honest and compassionate service, only to suffer disillusion. 'A wonderful basilica of a novel.' Independent 'An astonishing achievement.' Irish Times 'Rich in bizarre theatre... unabashed period drama, gorgeous and sinister grand guignol.' Sunday Times 'O'Faolain gently but unmistakably draws parallels with today's church... I hope his holiness reads it.' Telegraph

Julia O'Faolain is one of the most important Irish writers of the past half-century. Under the Rose is a selection of short stories taken from her many celebrated collections.These are stories about families and relationships, religion and politics, new life and mortality, and their settings range from Ireland and the USA to Italy and France. O'Faolain exposes the delusions of sexual desire, explores the failings of the Church and unpicks the casual brutalities of a patriarchal society. In an afterword, she considers the art of the short story and the influences that continue to shape her work.Powerful, profound and unflinching in their reflections on human experience, the stories in Under the Rose are masterpieces of the form.Praise for Julia O'Faolain:'The assurance, range and diversity of her stories . . . proclaim a writer of daunting gifts.' Guardian'Entertaining and rich in comedy . . . gripping and moving.' William...

Paris in the 1890s. Adam Gould, whose Anglo-Irish father has disowned him, works in a lunatic asylum run by the celebrated Dr Blanche, some of whose patients once starred in France's social firmament and still, when sane, sit at table with distinguished guests. One such patient is Guy de Maupassant. Another is Belcastel, who has taken the blame for a monarchist plot against the Third Republic, then feigned insanity. Madness and uncertain identity drive Adam's story, fuelled by Maupassant's sparkling insights on the matter. Gould falls in love with a married connection of Belcastel's. And things are made no simpler on his return home, when he becomes entangled with a cousin who looks hauntingly like his dead mother. 'A writer of stunning quality, a novelist of irony and compassion.' The Daily Telegraph 'Splendidly readable.' William Trevor '...a highly original work of fiction, urbane, elegant and full of esprit.' Patricia Craig Independent '...a remarkable work, written in a...