ABSTRACT
Frank O’Connor, the pseudonym of Michael John O’Donovan, was an Irish fiction writer, critic, and translator of ancient Gaelic works. He gained distinction as a master of the short story and an outstanding craftsman, especially for his stories depicting moments of crises in the lives of ordinary people that transform them and change the course of their lives. His fiction is realistic and lyrical and portrays a middle-class Catholic world. It concentrates on family conflicts over marriage, religion, work, and local loyalties. William Butler Yeats was an admirer of O’Connor, crediting him with “doing for Ireland what Chekhov did for Russia.”
