Category Archives: Authors

The Friday Fight: Good Friday

(Isaiah 53) Who has believed what he has heard from us?

And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

For he grew up before him like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;

he has put him to grief;

when his soul makes an offering for guilt,

he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;

the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

make many to be accounted righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,

because he poured out his soul to death

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and makes intercession for the transgressors.

What Makes the Irish So Good?

Why are the Irish such good writers? Don’t even try to argue that they aren’t. The green of envy is not the shade we’re looking for.

In related news, Seamus Heaney wins the £40,000 David Cohen prize for literary achievement.

The Irish in New York

The New York State Writer’s Institute has a YouTube playlist of Irish poets, authors, and playwrights talking about their books, writing, and Ireland. I’ve listened only through Fintan O’Toole’s segment so far. It’s pretty interesting. The volume varies a bit, so you may want earphones.

They always say, “Write what you know”

Master thriller writer Frederick Forsyth stumbled into a genuine political coup on a recent research trip to Guinea-Bissau in West Africa.

From the Associated Press:

Hours before he touched down in the West African nation, a bomb hidden under a staircase blew apart the armed forces chief. Hours later the president was gunned down, and according to Forsyth, hacked to pieces.

He said he has stopped inventing fictional places “because the world is so weird and so scary, you might as well use the real ones.”

Read the rest here.

Sigrid Undset on Russia

Today at The Brussels Journal, Thomas F. Bertonneau gives a synopsis of a fascinating report written by author Sigrid Undset (one of my favorites) following her escape from occupied Norway through Russia and Japan during World War II.

At least one western intellectual wasn’t duped by Stalin.