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Philip MacCann

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Name
  
Philip MacCann

Role
  
Author

Books
  
The miracle shed


Philip MacCann (born 1966) is a British author.

Contents

Born in Manchester, he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia under Malcolm Bradbury. His first book, The Miracle Shed (1995), a collection of short stories, won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, and in 2000 he was awarded the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize.

In the 1990s he was a literary journalist for the Guardian newspaper and Spectator magazine and contributed frequently to Prospect Magazine and others. It was here that he made public a distinct classical aesthetic, statements about the ethical shortcomings of Art and acerbic criticisms of rising populism. In the Guardian he wrote of his reluctance to continuing publishing after the Miracle Shed. His first short stories appeared in Faber's First Fictions, the New Yorker and New Writing (British Council) where they were singled out for special praise. "Really blazes - this is what Literature is about," wrote the Guardian.

In 1999 Robert McCrum selected him for the Observer Newspaper as one of twenty world authors expected to be significant in the new millennium. In fact, only a handful of stories subsequently appeared: in Granta magazine, the Faber Book of Best New Irish Short Stories and the Dublin Review.

The Miracle Shed

The stories were described by one reviewer as having content as dark as anywhere in literature while technical innovations and the strangeness of the imagery aim for aesthetic ecstasy. Black humour and at times over-rich language aim to seduce readers into enjoying tales of intense suffering, an effect which mirrors how characters are tempted by guilty joys.

Themes

The ruthlessness and strangeness of Nature, its inappropriateness for human sensitivity and the ease with which evil is perpetrated even in intimate relationships (between dysfunctional lovers or with oppressive parents). A recurring motif highlights the plight of a very young couple struggling to cope with pregnancy. Other themes include: sexual rage, violence, frustration and taboos; poverty, prostitution and abuse; psychedelia; magic and the occult.

Awards and honours

  • 1995 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature
  • 2000 Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize
  • References

    Philip MacCann Wikipedia