Women and Exile in Contemporary Irish Fiction examines the representation of the Irish woman migrant and ideas of exile in the contemporary Irish novel. Women have frequently been overlooked or made to serve an emblematic or symbolic function in the portrayal of exile in Irish writing, but more recent treatments of exile and emigration show a keen interest in reclaiming the history of the Irish woman emigrant and in explicitly addressing this lacuna. The book surveys how the Irish woman emigrant is imagined from the early twentieth century to the present day, and explores how six Irish authors - Julia O'Faolain, Edna O'Brien, Anne Enright, John McGahern, William Trevor and Colm Toibin - have contributed to the recovery of the story of the woman migrant. Particular emphasis is given to how these writers offer complex representations of women in relation to the Irish emigrant experience and respond to a range of different meanings of exile and emigration in an Irish context."