The history of partition in the twentieth century is one steeped in controversy and violence. Literature, Partition and the Nation State offers an extended study of the social and cultural legacies of state division in Ireland and Palestine, two regions where the trauma of partition continues to shape political events to this day. Focusing on the period since the 1960s, when the original partition settlements in each region were challenged by Irish and Palestinian nationalists, Joe Cleary's book contains individual chapters on nationalism and self-determination; on the construction of national literatures in the wake of state division; and on influential Irish, Israeli and Palestinian writers, film-makers and public intellectuals. Cleary's book is a radical and enthralling intervention into contemporary scholarship from a range of disciplines on nations and nationalism. It will be of interest to scholars in Cultural and Post-Colonial Studies, Nations and Nationalism, Irish Literature, Middle East Studies and Modern History.

‘This book is strikingly original … Joe Cleary restores to literary analysis cultural and political dimensions that it had lost. This is a groundbreaking book by a remarkably gifted and powerful writer.’

Seamus Deane

‘Stylish and elegant. Cleary’s book offers and innovative and compelling analysis of the political, cultural and intellectual struggles that have issued form the colonial partitions of Ireland and Palestine … A remarkably powerful and original piece of work.’

Edward Said

'… Cleary's arguments are so clearly articulated and carefully constructed that his book will be of wide use to scholars of the literatures of any partitioned culture … his argument is remarkably well organised and clearly expressed … this book impresses … it provides a theoretical framework that will have wide use, but also presents some intriguing comparative readings from the three cultures it discusses … it points many exciting ways forward for Irish Studies.'

Source: Irish Studies Review

'… cleary balances the possibility of post-imperial partition being a shared experience in Ireland, Israel and Palestine … The second part of Cleary's book has an admirably acute reading of how partition is not only represented in, but structurally determines, narrative in (Northern) Irish culture and discusses in particular the novels for teenagers … [he] concludes this chapter with a brief but illuminating move into discussing the Peace Process and its effect on literary fiction … [this] is one of the most significant books in Irish studies in recent years; significant for its critical and conceptual intelligence, but also for its willingness to shift the agenda of Irish postcolonial critique into truly challenging arenas, where the curiously under-researched phenomenon of Partition means that Neil Jordan can be read in the same matrix as Amos Oz.'

Source: Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory