The death of acclaimed Irish–American author JP Donleavy has been announced. His most famous work 'The Gingerman', which was published in 1955, was originally banned in both Ireland and the US. Based on the time he spent as a student in Trinity College Dublin, it later became a cult classic.
On Arena, Seán Rocks explored the archives playing a clip of Donleavey speaking with Myles Dungan on the show Rattlebag from 2005. Donleavy recalled how difficult it was to get a publisher his book 'The Gingerman'.
Donleavey explains that it was, in fact, Brendan Behan who had first read the manuscript and was the first one to ever do so and follow up on it. JP Donelavey then left for America and said that a few publishers were somewhat interested but had difficulty getting the book published because of the content.
"One got interested in it and got frightened to publish it because they published From Here to Eternity which caused them a lot of trouble. They realised a lot of the scatological things couldn't be removed from the book."
Donelavey tells Myles Dungan that it all went downhill after that until nobody wanted to publish the book. It was then when he met up with Brendan Behan in London and he advised him to send it over to someone in Paris who worked in the Irish Times Paris, to see if they could be of any assistance.
"I returned to London I think and Behan was there. We met up and he said "Well look, why don't you send it over to someone who worked in the Irish Times in Paris but in care of the Olympia Press in Paris and see what they might do" and I did and that's what happened"
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