Paul Durcan has been at the heart of Irish cultural life for 30 years and his poetry has acquired a huge international following. Greetings To Our Friends in Brazil is his most challenging and engaging collection yet, one that addresses itself through Ireland and the Irish diaspora to the whole world beyond.
It is his most personal and his most public work, a book of tremendous imaginative power. By turns lyrical, humorous, angry, whimsical, generous and visionary, it is a meticulously honest record of a writer's inner life and a bold attempt to fix the soul of his country at a particular time: the years of Mary Robinson's presidency. The pain and recovery of Paul Durcan's inner odyssey are mirrored in the images of an Ireland awakening from the nightmare of its violent past, becoming freer and more cosmopolitan, and finding in Mary Robinson the unifying symbol for this new, more hopeful age.