Book excerpt: This book examines the personality, cultural inheritance, social commentary, literary art, and representative qualities of Sean O'Faolain, dean of modern Irish literature. It updates O'Faolain's significance as a world-class writer and reinterprets his career of over fifty years from a universalist perspective. It also explores O'Faolain's vital relationship with his native culture, conceiving him as representative Irish writer, self-conscious Irishman and Irish citizen-of-the-world.