At Swim-Two Birds

Flann O'Brien

At Swim-Two Birds

London

Longmans, Green & Co.

1939

Inscribed: “To me ould friend P.C. with kind regards in memory of happy days from the Author Brian O’Nolan 14/7/39 and with love from all at Number Four.”

Flann O’Brien, the pen name of Brian O’Nolan, published only a few books in his lifetime, yet he is widely considered one of the great postmodernist Irish novelists of the twentieth century. At Swim-Two Birds received praise from Graham Greene and James Joyce, and The Third Policeman, published posthumously, has become a cult classic. O’Brien worked as a civil servant and as a journalist, for years writing a highly-acclaimed humor column under the name Myles na Gopaleen. A heavy drinker like his friends Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh, he died in 1966 at the age of fifty-four.