About the Author As well as ten collections of poetry, Anthony Cronin has written a number of prose works, including biographies of Flann O'Brien and Samuel Beckett, the classic memoir of Dublin's arts scene in the fifties, Dead as Doornails, as well as numerous essays and a novel, The Life of Riley. He is married to the writer Anne Haverty and lives in Dublin. He served as a cultural and artistic advisor to the Irish Government in the 1980s, and was a founding member of Aosdána, where he holds the office of Saoi, a distinction conferred for exceptional artistic achievement.