“AND PERHAPS, before literature dies, there will come a day when no-one notices an author’s gender or race but says only ‘I have just read an astonishing, unforgettable book by a fantastic human writer.’ I plan to live to see this.”

So writes Mary Dorcey in this collection of writings which reaches beyond the current experiences described to a future where such full equality of gender, race and class is achieved that they no longer spell marginalisation and exclusion from the cultural mainstream.

The 21 poets, fiction writers and playwrights in the book tell how they became the writers they are. Coming from the whole island of Ireland, they write in both Irish and English and are from a range of social backgrounds.