'Michael Parker's impressive study bears the stamp of authority. He possesses the commanding overview and the jeweller's eye for detail essential for a properly historical reading of the literature of Northern Ireland. Preoccupied not with moments or movements, but with how the marks of history punctuate the present, Parker charts the imprint of history across five decades. The readings he offers, neither footprints in the sand nor steps set in stone, signify an ongoing struggle - historical, literary and critical - with deep roots... This is an expert traversal of troubled terrain...astonishingly erudite, painstakingly researched, and beautifully executed.' - Professor Willy Maley, School of English and Scottish Language and Literature, University of Glasgow, UK

'...offers both a cultural history and a series of impeccably detailed readings of poetry, fiction and drama...By bringing this wide range of texts into constellation with each other, Parker significantly alters the map of Northern Irish literature as many people currently know it.' - Professor Stephen Regan, Departmentof English Studies, University of Durham, UK

'With his steady and straightforward modus operandi, his frequent insights and telling juxtapositions Michael Parker proves an estimable guide to the vagaries, horrors and irrepressible creativity for the past fifty years in the North of Ireland.' - Patricia Craig, Times Literary Supplement

'With care and precision, he [Parker] directs the reader towards in-depth encounters with poetics, symbolism, and dramaturgy.' - John Murphy, Estudios Irlandeses

'...a scrupulously balanced and rigorously researched account of the key historical events which inform the writers' oeuvre...such scholarship pays off handsomely in illuminating the forces acting upon each author.' - Shane Murphy, Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies

'Throughout these two volumes, the work of eleven years of scholarship and writing, Parker's consistent achievement is to illuminate 'the imprint of history' on literary works: he clarifies details of origins and reception, supplies new readings of the self-reflexive and intertextual features at work in many poems and plays, and thus creates an enriched perspective on Northern poetry, drama, and fiction from 1956 to 2006 Parker's illuminating historical narrative and cogent critical analyses make a significant contribution to current discussions of Northern writing. His method of integrating published materials, archives, letters, and interviews to modify and contest the perspectives of published accounts yields a truly impressive work of scholarship Parker's work merits sustained attention from all who are engaged in remapping the important features of contemporary Irish literary and historical studies and in identifying the texts that mark the defining contours of Northern Irish sensibilities.' - Joseph Heininger, New Hibernia Review

'Michael Parker has produced a work of lasting record that combines a wealth of contextual depth and colour (there are over 200 endnotes for each main chapter), a halpeful scholarly apparatus (including an extensive chronology) and detailed, painstaking critical commentaries that will be of major benefit to specialists and new researchers alike. It bears elegant, responsible wirness to an historical moment in which almost no one, for good or ill, got what they deserved.'

- Scott Brewster, Irish Studies Review