Abstract

Neil Jordan is widely considered to be one of Ireland's preeminent filmmakers. Interestingly, Jordan's less-recognized career as a writer has been overshadowed by his clout as a filmmaker, despite its high quality. As a result, much of his work has not received the critical assessment and analysis to which it is undoubtedly entitled. This study seeks to understand the many connections and intersections between Jordan's literature and film. It hopes to bridge a gap in the critical reception of Jordan's work which has, so far, looked only fleetingly into the intersections between his published writing and his contributions to cinema. The imagery, themes and plot points from Jordan's fiction writing and film overlap; the woven character of his work is never capricious---he is clearly working within a very specific and personal worldview, one that is informed as much by his personal experiences and visions of the world as by his awareness and interaction with Irish history and nationalism. This paper carefully considers the development of Jordan's fiction writing from the late 1970s, alongside his burgeoning career as a filmmaker, particularly considering how his first two publications--- Night in Tunisia and Other Stories (1976) and The Past (1980)---have influenced his later work. What follows is a loosely chronological exploration of Jordan's fiction writing, as it corresponds to---and is distinguished from---his cinematic work in cinema. I will argue that through a close exploration of Jordan's earlier writing, a better understanding of his later work can be gleaned