This collection of 14 essays has been designed to map the landscape of Irish fiction since 1960, and to assess the literary achievement of Irish novelists and short story writers, North and South of the border, over the last 40 years. As this volume demonstrates, Irish novelists and short story writers since 1960 have both continued and challenged conventional notions of Irish fiction; and they have contributed to the continuous examinatin of Irish identity, culture and politics, while making their fiction resonate with wide cultural, intellectual and human interest. This book includes essays which focus on major individual writers - Samuel Beckett, Brian Moore, Jennifer Johnston, Maurice Leitch, John McGahern, Patrick McGinley and John Banville. There are also general essays of a more explicitly comparative and thematic nature covering such topics as the impact of modernization on Irish fiction, the contemporary "Big House" novel, the Protestant imagination, the "Troubles" novel, the importance of the past, childhood and women's narratives, constructions of masculinity, and women short story writers. By closely analzying texts, exploring the relationship between texts, and also between texts and their social, cultural and political contexts, and by examining, significant themes and preoccupations, these essays offer valuation insight into the variety and complexity of mdoern Irish fiction from a range of viewpoints.