Chapter 13 - Irish Fiction, Small Presses, and the World-System

Summary

This chapter examines the growth of small-press publishing in Ireland during the 2010s and early 2020s. It contextualizes the Irish small-press industry within three broad trends: 1) the global expansion of nonprofit small-press publishing from the 1980s to the present; 2) the Irish state’s financing of literary infrastructure (mostly in the form of strategic funding grants disbursed by the Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíon); and 3) the development of rights-sharing agreements between small-press publishers, such that several different small presses will release the same title simultaneously (or in near succession) in different countries. In mapping this global publishing system, the chapter shows how the much-lauded “golden age” of post-crash Irish fiction can be traced to market and institutional dynamics. Specifically, it describes how the consolidation of the international small-press industry has exerted a discernable influence on the aesthetics of contemporary Irish literature, with Irish literature evolving into a field in which certain international styles popular with Anglo-American small presses are cited, borrowed from, reworked, and made into something new.