Thomas Flanagan is one of the finest historical novelists of our time. When The Tenants of Time was published in 1988, it was hailed in a front page review of The New York Times Book Review: “It is a pleasure to praise and recommend this wonderful new book. Every sentence seems to shine.” His earlier bestseller, The Year of the French (1979), was made into a film for television.

Flanagan’s most recent novel, The End of the Hunt, was published in 1993. The story chronicles Ireland’s struggle for independence and the 1921 Anglo-irish treaty that led not only to the creation of the Irish Free State but also to the civil war that followed. It brings to life a wide range of fictional and historical characters, including Michael Collins, Winston Churchill and Eamon de Valera.

A professor of English at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Flanagan, whose ancestors hail from Co. Fermanagh, divides his time between Dublin and New York. He is currently at work on a book about the Irish rebel Roger Casement.