Roy Foster
Doors into the Dark: Seamus Heaney and his Worlds

Roy Foster is Emeritus Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and Professor of Irish History and Literature at Queen Mary University of London. He has published widely on Irish political, social and literary history and is notably the author of the influential work Modern Ireland 1600-1972 as well as an acclaimed biography of W.B. Yeats in two volumes. He is currently preparing a publication on Seamus Heaney and will speak tonight about the poet’s commanding position in contemporary Irish literature as well as the unique relationship Heaney built up with his reading public - based in part upon his readiness to explore the darker sides of history, antagonism and identity in Ireland.