Biography

Descended from Jewish Lithuanian immigrants, David Marcus was born in Cork and educated at UCC and King's Inns, Dublin. He founded the quarterly Irish Writing in 1946 and edited it for eight years. In 1968 he became literary editor of the Irish Press, a post he held for some 20 years, during which time he started the New Irish Writing page, where he published the work of (then) emerging writers such as Neil Jordan, Desmond Hogan and Dermot Healy. His own novels include To Next Year in Jerusalem and A Land Not Theirs. He has also written short stories and a translation of The Midnight Court, as well as editing dozens of anthologies of Irish poetry and short stories. This extract is from his forthcoming memoir, Oughtobiography: Leaves from the Diary of a Hyphenated Jew, to be published on September 21st by Gill and Macmillan at £19.99. He lives in Dublin with his wife, the writer Ita Daly.