Archipelago: A Reader

Archipelago is one of the most important and influential literary magazines of the last twenty years. Running to twelve editions, it was edited by Andrew McNeillie, with the assistance later of James McDonald Lockhart, and began as an attempt to reimagine the relationships between the islands of Ireland and Britain. Archipelago has brought together established and emerging artists in creative conversations that have transformed the study of islands, coasts and waterways. It journeys from the Shetlands to Cornwall, from the Aran Islands to the coast of Yorkshire, tracing the cultures of diverse zones through some of the best in contemporary writing about place and people. This collection gathers poetry, prose and visual art in clusters grouped around the Irish and British archipelago, with contributions from an array of significant artists. It includes newly commissioned work as well as an interview between Andrew McNeillie and Robert Macfarlane on the development of Archipelago across the years.

About the Author :
Alice Oswald is a poet from Reading, recipient of the Eric Gregory Award, the Forward Poetry Prize, and the T.S. Eliot Prize for The Dart.   Kathleen Jamie is a Scottish writer, whose writing has appeared internationally. She has taught poetry at the University of Stirling since 2010.   Robert Macfarlane is a Writing Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. His work has won him the EM Forster Award for Literature.   Sinéad Morrisey is a Northern Irish winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize. The Trinity College graduate has taught in Belfast and Newcastle.   Andrew McNeillie is a Welsh poet, and current Literature Editor at Oxford University Press. His memoir An Aran Keening is published by The Lilliput Press, and he is founder of the Clutag Press.   Seamus Heaney was born in Northern Ireland in 1939, and died in Dublin aged 74. His career included teaching at Harvard and Oxford, and receiving the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the EM Firster Award, the PEN Translation prise, the Golden Wreath of Poetry. The T.S. Eliot Prize, two Whitbread Prizes, and the Griffin Poetry Prize.   Richard Murphy was an Anglo-Irish poet, and passed away in 2018. Recipient of many prestigious awards, including the AE Memorial Award and the American Irish Foundation Literary Award, he was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was included in the Oxford Companion to English Literature.   Michael Longley is a Northern Irish poet, and winner of the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, and the PEN Pinter Prize in 2017.   Derek Mahon is a Northern Irish poet. He studied at Trinity College and at the Sorbonne in Paris. He has won the David Cohen Prize for Literature and the Poetry Now Award.   Deirdre Ní Chonghaile is a graduate of the University of Oxford and University College Cork. She is associated with NUI, Galway, and the University of Notre Dame, and is known for her work in music studies.      

Review :
This book is thrilling: it leaves the reader scrambling for ground: Is every possible interpretation or nuance about archipelagoes contained here? The possibility enthrals. Within the compendium individual writers reveal their own sources so the effect is like a Russian doll of mysteries within mysteries. The editors are to be praised for uniting these threads into a rare and colourful garment. This is both a lengthy and weighty volume. But its 578 pages are full of gems of good writing and observation.