Life
1932-1981; b. 5 June, Crumlin, son of bricklayer; one of 21 children,
13 surviving; suffered from brain paralysis of athetoid kind
[DIB cerebral palsy], considered mentally disabled until he snatched a
piece of chalk from a sister with his left foot; mother taught him to
read and write; Dr Robert Collis
played central part in his rehabilitation, teaching speech co-ordination;
wrote on typewriter; My Left Foot (1954) expanded into novel Down
all the Days (1970), the work of ten years; translated into 14 languages;
Come Softly to My Wake (1971), best-selling poetry collection,
followed by Of Snails And Skylarks (1978), in which "Sunset Star"
[‘playing my poetic permutations’]; issued Wild Grow the
Lilies (1976), a romance set in Parnell’s city (Dublin), with
characters such as Martin, Joy, Sue and Laurie (‘her mature beauty
in strict contrast to Abbie’s coltish charms’); m. Mary Carr,
nurse from Tralee; bought bungalow at Ballyheigue, Co. Kerry, and house
in Parbrook, Somerset; d. Parbrook; My Left Foot (scriptplay by Shane Connaughton),
was filmed by Jim Sheridan in 1987 [var. 1989], with Daniel Day Lewis
and Brenda Fricker. DIB DIW MAC OCIL
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Works
Prose, My Left Foot, with a foreword by Dr. Bob [Robert] Collis
(London: Secker & Warburg 1954; NY: Simon & Schuster 1955; Cork:
Mercier Press 1964); Do., rep. in America as Story of Christy
Brown (NY: Pocket Books 1971), and also as The Childhood Story
of Christy Brown (London: Pan Books 1972); Do., trans. in French
as Miracle en Irelande (Paris: Laffont 1955), and rep. as Du
pied gauche (Paris: Laffond 1971); Down All The Days (London:
Secker & Warburg; NY: Stein & Day 1970); Do. [rep. edn.]
(London: Pan Books 1971); Do. [in French as] Celui qui regardait
passer les jours (Paris: Editions du Seuil 1971); A Shadow on Summer
(London: Secker & Warburg 1973) [London Book Club Associates]; Wild
Grow the Lilies (London: Secker & Warburg; Stein & Day 1976);
A Promising Career ([q. pub.] 1982).
Poetry, Come Softly to My Wake (London: Secker & Warburg 1971), as Poems of Christy Brown (NY: Stein & Day 1971); Background Music: Poems (London: Secker & Warburg/Stein & Day 1973), 66pp.; Of Snails and Skylarks (London: Secker & Warburg 1978), 79pp.; Inmates (1981); To Be a Pilgrim, introduced by Robert Collis (1975) [autobiography]. Reprint Edns., (Rep.), Down All the Days (1991); A Promising Career (1991), A Shadow on Summer (1991) and Wild Grow the Lilies. (rep. 1991), 312pp.
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- William Trevor, ‘The snarling, yelling world of real Dublin’, Irish Times Saturday Review (16 May 1970), reviewing Down All the Days;
- Bernard Cassen, ‘celui qui regardait passer les jours’ de Christy Brown, in Le Monde (18 June 1971), p.17.;
- [?Cassen,] ‘Un Cri venu d’Irlande’ review of Down All the Days [?];
- Françoise Borel, ‘I Am Without a Name’, The Fiction of Christy Brown’, in Patrick Rafroidi & Maurice Harmon, The Irish Novel in Our Time [Cahiers Irlandaises 4-5] (l’Université de Lille 1976), pp.287-95;
- Anthony J. Jordan, Christy Brown’s Women (Westport Books 1998), 180pp.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)