David Marcus

David Marcus (b. 1924 in County Cork, d. Beltane 9 May 2009) was an Irish Jewish editor and writer who was a lifelong advocate and editor of Irish fiction.

Life and times

Born in County Cork in 1924, Marcus was the much-loved^[1] editor of numerous anthologies of Irish fiction and poetry, including the Phoenix Irish Short Stories collections.

Other notable projects included the page New Irish Writing for the Irish Press, which provided a forum for aspiring Irish authors, publishing most of the most important names in Irish fiction, many for the first time, including Dermot Bolger, Ita Daly, Anne Enright, Neil Jordan, Claire Keegan, John McGahern, Bernard MacLaverty, Eilis Ní Dhuibhne, Joseph O'Connor, Colm Tóibín and William Wall. He was, in the words of Fintan O'Toole "the single most important literary editor in Ireland in the second half of the 20th century"^[2]. His 1986 the novel A Land Not Theirs, a fictionalized account of the experiences of the Cork Jewish community during the Irish War of Independence was a bestseller.

In 2001 Marcus published Oughtobiography - Leaves from the diary of a hyphenated Jew, an autobiographical review of his life as an Irish-Jewish person and as a figure in the field of Irish literature.

On June 3, 2005, he was awarded an honorary Degree of Doctor of Literature by the National University of Ireland, University College, Cork^[3]

Marcus was married to fellow Irish novelist Ita Daly and lived in Rathgar in Dublin.

Bibliography

• Marcus, David (Editor) (1998). Phoenix Irish Short Stories 1998. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 1-86159-130-6. 
• Marcus, David (2003). Phoenix Irish Short Stories 2003. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. pp. 213. ISBN 0753817179. 

References

External links

• Profile of Marcus at "Irish Writers Online"
• Irish P.E.N. Special Award citation of David Marcus
• Obituary