Irish Pages: A Journal of Contemporary Writing: Inaugural Issue: Belfast in Europe

IRISH PAGES is a biannual journal, edited in Belfast and publishing, in equal measure, writing from Ireland and overseas.Its policy is to publish poetry, short fiction, essays, creative non-fiction, memoir, essay reviews, nature-writing, translated work, literary journalism, and other autobiographical, historical, religious and scientific writing of literary distinction. There are no standard reviews or narrowly academic articles. Irish Language and Ulster Scots writing are published in the original, with English translations or glosses.IRISH PAGES is a non-partisan, non-sectarian, culturally ecumenical, and wholly independent journal. It seeks to create a novel literary space in the North adequate to the unfolding cultural potential of the new political dispensation. The magazine is cognisant of the need to reflect in its pages the various meshed levels of human relations: the regional (Ulster), the national (Ireland and Britain), the continental (the whole of Europe), and the global.This issue features:•Tom Paulin on Belfast and its vernaculars•An Irish epilogue by Helen Lewis•George Watson's countries of the mind•An extract from W. G. Sebald•Wendell Berry's thoughts in the presence of fear•Chris Agee on the Good Friday Agreement•One of Hubert Butler's uncollected essays•Translations from the Arabic•A parable for the New Europe•New poetry and prose by Seamus Heaney, Harry Clifton, Deirdre Madden, John Gray, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Daniel Tobin, Samuel Menashe, Neal Ascherson, Tim Robinson, Medbh McGuckian, John Montague, John Burnside & others•PLUS: “Portraits of Writers” A remarkable photographic portfolio by John Minihan