With this new work, Alan Jude Moore marks a return to Dublin after the Russian poems of
Lost Republics.
This book, Moore’s third collection, is about Dublin but also
by extension it is about Europe and the citizen, about how we are more
united by its expanse, by our common interests, needs and histories than
we are divided by its nations and borders. That the small Alsatian city
of the title, Strasbourg, is one of our capitals reflects a wider
cultural identity Ireland is part of, not tied to the narrow nationalism
and theocracy that have constrained its development for close to a
century.
It is about how, through the cities and centres of Europe, through the
influx and movement of people, information and ideas, we are constantly
changing and developing, through empires and republics, as citizens and
collectives. As the territories we live in seek to renew themselves, it
is by this common ground that we might discover where to go from here.
