David Marcus (21 August 1924 in

County Cork County Cork () is the largest and the southernmost Counties of Ireland, county of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, named after the city of Cork (city), Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster ...

9 May 2009) was an Irish Jewish editor and writer who was a lifelong advocate for and editor of Irish fiction.

Life and times

Born in

in 1924, Marcus was the much-loved editor of numerous anthologies of Irish fiction and poetry, including the ''Phoenix Irish Short Stories'' collections. Other notable projects included the page ''New Irish Writing'' for the '' Irish Press'', which provided a forum for aspiring Irish authors, publishing most of the most important names in Irish fiction, many for the first time, including

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, Ita Daly, Anne Enright,

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, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne,

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, Colum McCann and William Wall. He was, in the words of Fintan O'Toole "the single most important literary editor in Ireland in the second half of the 20th century". His 1986 novel, ''A Land Not Theirs'', a fictionalized account of the experiences of the Cork Jewish community during the

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was a bestseller. In 1986, his second novel, which drew on his experiences among the Cork Jewish community, ''A Land in Flames'' was also a popular success. In 2001, Marcus published ''Oughtobiography – Leaves from the diary of a hyphenated Jew'', an autobiographical review of his life as an Irish Jew and as an important figure in

Irish literature Irish literature is literature written in the Irish, Latin, English and Scots ( Ulster Scots) languages on the island of Ireland. The earliest recorded Irish writing dates from back in the 7th century and was produced by monks writing in ...

. On 3 June 2005, he was awarded an honorary Degree of Doctor of Literature by the National University of Ireland, University College, Cork. Marcus was married to fellow Irish novelist Ita Daly and lived in

Rathgar Rathgar () is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (off ...

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

. In 2016 she published a memoir of their life together, ''I'll Drop You a Line: A Life With David Marcus''.

Bibliography

* *

References

External links

Profile of Marcus
at "Irish Writers Online"
Irish P.E.N. Special Award citation of David Marcus

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marcus, David 1924 births 2009 deaths 20th-century Irish writers 21st-century Irish writers Irish editors Irish-language writers Irish people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Jewish writers People associated with University College Cork Writers from County Cork The Irish Press people People educated at Presentation Brothers College, Cork Translators of Brian Merriman 20th-century Irish Jews