Author Description

(Anthony Bailey brings Northern Ireland into focus through lively portraits of, among others, a President, a poet, and a primary school principal. Acts of Union is a collection of articles many of which first appeared in The New Yorker that go beyond ideological debate to show the effect of the centuries-old troubles in Northern Ireland on the daily lives of its citizens. With novelistic vividness, Bailey writes about men and women who are trying, in different ways, to overcome the fragmentation and divisions that at once injure and give intensity to Ireland and Irish life.The opening piece winner of an Overseas Press Club Award takes us through a day at a Protestant school that doubles as a barracks for the British Army in the heart of one of Belfast's most violence-ridden neighborhoods. The children, despite a steady diet of bomb scares and barbed wire and stone-throwing with their Catholic peers, prove to be surprisingly resilient and on the surface, at least In most drawings, it's still Nazi war planes bombing American convoys. Little girls draw little girls skipping between apple trees in front of houses with smoke curling up out of the chimneys.Acts of Union is perceptive, intelligent and a joy to read. Brian Moore