Crying of the Wind: Ireland

Ithell Colquhoun

Book cover for Crying of the Wind: Ireland
Image for variant 9781805331568
Book cover for Crying of the Wind: Ireland
Image for variant 9781805331568

Crying of the Wind: Ireland

Crying of the Wind: Ireland

Ithell Colquhoun

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Description

The British surrealist painter and writer Ithell Colquhoun recalls episodes from her travels in Ireland as a young woman turning her back on the modern world and setting out across the unruly Irish countryside. Here, among the holy wells, monasteries and tumuli, she finds a canvas on which her sensibility and animist beliefs can freely express themselves. Her style is beguiling, her voice sincere, and through her unique perceptions we discover a land that is fiercely alive and compelling. It is a place where the wind cries, the stones tell old tales and the mountains watch over the roads and those who travel on them. By intuiting the eerie magic of Ireland, Colquhoun casts her own spell. She offers up a land of myth and legend, stripped of its modern signs, at the same time offering herself to the reader in this portrait of the artist as a young woman.

About the Author

Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988) was born in British India and brought up in the United Kingdom. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and started exhibiting her paintings in the 1930s, gaining some renown as one of the few women associated with British Surrealism. She began visiting Cornwall during the Second World War, and eventually moved there, continuing to write, paint, and pursue the study of the occult until her death. As well as her novel Goose of Hermogenes, she is the author of two travelogues, The Living Stones: Cornwall and The Crying of the Wind: Ireland, both forthcoming from Pushkin Press.

Critical Reviews

"Marvellous... A beguiling, superbly written mix of travelogue, reportage, nature-writing, art criticism and - on its deepest level - an inquiry into religion, spirituality and the big questions of philosophy... At times she captures some essential truth at the core of things so perfectly - somehow expressing the inexpressible in words - that you get that shiver of recognition which really only great art can provide."
--Irish Independent

"Exquisitely strange... Colquhoun's writing is lit from within by an incandescent glow... An enchanting read."
--Irish Times

"Colquhoun is an incisive observer of Irish social mores... An eccentric visitor not only willing to embrace the country but also to expend her creative energy on its history, idiosyncrasies and traditions." --Apollo

Publishing Information

Publisher: Pushkin Press Classics
Pub date: 2025-08-05
Length: 192 pages

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