Francis Stuart: Artist and Outcast

Francis Stuart (1902-2000) was the author of 25 novels, including Black List, Section H, and was critically acclaimed by W.B Yeats among others. He is arguably best known, however, for his broadcasts from Berlin for Hitlers Third Reich a source of lifelong controversy which led to accusations of being a Nazi collaborator and an anti-Semite.

Kevin Kiely, who first met Francis Stuart in the 1970s, recounts the controversial writers fascinating life: his fathers suicide when Stuart was an infant; his marriage at age seventeen to Maud Gonnes daughter, Iseult, a former lover of Ezra Pounds who had refused W.B Yeats marriage proposals; his time as an IRA gunrunner during the Civil War; his burgeoning literary career and the many controversies that surrounded him throughout his life.

In the 1930s Stuart left Ireland to lecture in Berlin, where he made the notorious broadcasts during the war, and married a Polish refugee who was accused of being a Nazi spy. Returning home in the 1960s, Stuart eventually became a respected figure and in 1982 he was invited into Aosdna, the Irish academy of artists and writers. His membership and elevation to Saoi of Aosdna, its highest reward for artistic achievement, became the subject of more controversy and caused leading Irish writers to split into pro-Stuart and anti-Stuart camps. Accusations of anti-Semitism pursued Stuart into his nineties when he was forced to take a libel action against The Irish Times and won. The debate about Francis Stuart, however, rages on.

In this compelling and highly readable biography, Kiely considers the philosophical and literary beliefs and extraordinary life of one of Irelands most controversial figures.

Reviews

"A fascinatingly accurate echo of the controversial writer's own eerie voice"

Brian Lynch, The Irish Times

"Those seeking to unravel Stuart's labyrinthine life will hardly find a more detailed expose than this one."

David O'Donoghue, Sunday Business Post