Thomas Bonner Flanagan (November 5, 1923 – March 21, 2002)[1] was an American university professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a novelist.
Thomas Flanagan | |
|---|---|
| Born | Thomas Bonner Flanagan November 5, 1923 Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Died | March 21, 2002 (aged 78) Berkeley, California, U.S. |
| Education | Amherst College (BA) Columbia University (MA, PhD) |
| Occupation(s) | professor novelist |
| Spouse | Jane Parker Flanagan |
| Children | 2, including Caitlin Flanagan |
| Relatives | Andrew Klavan (son-in-law) |
Biography
editFlanagan was born in 1923 in Greenwich, Connecticut,[2] to a homemaker mother and a dentist father. All of his grandparents had come to the United States from County Fermanagh, Ireland. He served in the United States Army during World War II. He graduated from Amherst College in 1945. He received his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Columbia University. From 1960 to 1978 he was Professor of English Literature at the University of California at Berkeley, specializing in Irish literature. He was a tenured Full Professor in the English Department at the Stony Brook University until his retirement.
Flanagan was also a successful novelist. His first novel, The Year of the French, won the National Book Critics Award for fiction in 1979 and was adapted into a TV series, which was broadcast in Ireland in 1982.[3]
Personal life
editIn 1949, he married Jane Parker, a nurse; they had two children, writer Caitlin Flanagan and Ellen Flanagan Klavan.[1] His son-in-law is writer Andrew Klavan.[4][5] He and his wife spent much of their time in Ireland. They lived in East Setauket, Long Island.
Works
editHistorical novels
edit- The Year of the French (1979); ISBN 9781590171080 (2004)
- The Tenants of Time (1988)
- The End of the Hunt (1995)
Non-fiction work
edit- The Irish Novelists 1800–1850 (1958)
Legacy
editThe Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College holds his papers.
References
edit- ^ a b c Genzlinger, Neil (March 29, 2002). "Thomas Flanagan, 78, Author Of Trilogy About Ireland". The New York Times.
- ^ "Irish Writers Online: Thomas Flanagan". www.irishwriters-online.com. Archived from the original on August 21, 2008.
- ^ Guy Beiner, "The Decline and Rebirth of 'Folk Memory': Remembering 'The Year of the French' in the Late Twentieth Century", Éire – Ireland, 38, no. 3-4 (2003), 7–32.
- ^ Robinson, Peter (8 September 2008). "The World According to Andrew Klavan". Hoover. Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson. Hoover Institute. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
- ^ Robinson, Peter (August 2, 2008). "That Despicable Winston Churchill". National Review.
....reminded me of an exchange I had with my father-in-law, Thomas Flanagan, brilliant guy, old school academic lefty. Flanagan, the author of a marvelous trilogy of novels about Ireland, the first of which is "The Year of the French," taught at Berkeley
Sources
editExternal links
edit- Thomas A. Flanagan (AC 1945) Papers at the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections
