McGahern donates unpublished book

An unpublished novel, entitled The End and the Beginning of Love, is among a large body of literary material which writer John McGahern has donated to NUI,Galway.

The typed manuscript was the award-winning writer's first book and was sought for publication by Faber and Faber in London more than 40 years ago.

"I didn't think it was good enough so I withdrew it and offered to write them another one if they gave me a contract," Mr McGahern told The Irish Times yesterday at the university.

Speaking before he presented his material to NUI's James Hardiman Library, Mr McGahern recalled how Charles Monteith of Faber and Faber agreed to pay him an advance of £75 for the debut - the highly acclaimed The Barracks, which appeared in 1963.

He was paid a second sum of £75 after publication and the publishing house asked him to submit it for the AE Memorial Award - a bursary first won by Patrick Kavanagh.

"I knew I would have to get five copies done for this, so I agreed a deal with Monteith where he would pay for the typing if I lost and I'd pay for the typing if I won."

It wasn't such a great deal, he recalls.

"I won. The award was £100 and the typing bill came to £87 - so there was just a few pounds left for a few drinks!"

The first unpublished work will remain in manuscript form only, McGahern says, although an extract did appear in an English magazine.

The title, he says, was "a pretentious one" and the subject material dealt "mostly with boredom". Of his decision not to be tempted to release it when first approached, he remarks that "it was great to be in your 20s and have lots of confidence ..."

Mr McGahern, winner of this year's PEN/A T Cross Award, is the author of six novels and four collections of short stories, including the 1990 runner-up in the Booker Prize, Amongst Women, and his latest work, That They May Face the Rising Sun. His second novel, The Dark, published in 1965, was banned. He drew the disapproval of Archbishop John McQuaid and was dismissed from his teaching post in a north Dublin school.

The archive, presented to NUI president Dr Iognáid Ó Muircheartaigh yesterday, includes personal letters to his father, and some 14-15 drafts of Amongst Women and some 20 drafts of That They May Face the Rising Sun.

Mr McGahern says he edited out about two-thirds of the complete work for the final version of Amongst Women, and says he could "make a number of novels out of it".

He writes by hand, latterly typing his work.

"For the early drafts of the first novel I used a steel nib pen but now I use cheap biros, which I buy at 50 a time. So there's no excuse then - and I am always looking for an excuse not to write."

He is working on a memoir, the first half of which is almost complete, he says.

Mr McGahern believes Ireland to be a far more interesting place than the country he initially wrote about four decades ago. "Ninety per cent of the people who I went to school with had to emigrate and I was one of the lucky ones.

"Names like Chester and Crewe were in the vocabulary of a silent generation, which disappeared in silence. The tragedy was that the place they had left was more real to them than the places where they were living their lives."

Mr McGahern has written the introduction to a forthcoming collection of the writings of the late Irish Times political editor, Dick Walsh, with whom he shared a close friendship. "His writings are as fresh today as when they were written," McGahern notes.