O’Flaherty, Liam, << oh FLA huhr tee, LEE uhm >> (1896-1984), was an Irish writer of novels and short stories. He wrote many of his works in Gaelic and translated them into English. Much of O’Flaherty’s fiction vividly depicts the barren, rocky landscape and remote villages of the Aran Islands, where he was born and raised. Other works, reflecting his later life, describe grinding poverty in impersonal cities. Several of his works deal with Ireland’s fight for independence from the United Kingdom during the early 1900’s.
O’Flaherty’s best-known novel is the harshly realistic The Informer (1925). He also wrote The Neighbor’s Wife (1923), The Black Soul (1924), The Assassin (1928), Skerrett (1932), Famine (1937), and Insurrection (1950). In these novels, young, poor, and disadvantaged people struggle against overwhelming odds and lose.
O’Flaherty wrote many short stories in economic, lyrical prose. Many are collected in Spring Sowing (1924), The Stories of Liam O’Flaherty (1956), and The Pedlar’s Revenge (1976). These stories portray children, peasants, or animals with emotions, who are helpless in the face of passing time and the destructive force of nature. O’Flaherty wrote an autobiography, Shame the Devil (1934).
O’Flaherty was born on Aug. 28, 1896, in Inishmore. He died on Sept. 7, 1984.
