Irish-born novelist Joseph O’Neill, who has adopted Crown Heights as his hometown, experienced a rare international childhood. He was partially raised in Turkey, the Netherlands, South Africa and the Middle East. His writing is made all the richer by this life experience. 

O’Neill recently published “Godwin,” his fifth novel ten years in the making. O’Neill garnered acclaim for his 2008 novel “Netherland,” and O’Neill has established a career as a short-story writer, cultural critic and political writer. 

“Godwin” follows two brothers with different lives as they each seek fulfillment. Mark finds an opportunity for adventure and meaning when his younger half-brother, Geoff, decides to pursue a soccer prodigy in Africa. 

“I needed the book to be kind of indirectly pressured by [a political situation in the United States] because it felt slightly artificial to keep writing a story which had a very rich literary history — that story of the the Africa tale, the neocolonial adventure,” said O’Neill, who developed the character Lakesha in the last third of the writing process to balance the story and add perspective. “Mark represents a masculine, capitalist, nihilist grandiosity. He means well, but he feels dissatisfied with the civic order to the extent that he feels insufficiently kind of recognized in it, whereas Lakesha is a woman and devoted to a kind of civic project, which is the cooperative. I feel that this masculine feminine divide is reflected. This book does reflect something important about the organization of us and our world at the moment”

O’Neill was raised in several different countries and cultures, and his background was an amalgamation of cultures, traditions and languages. As an adult, O’Neill moved to New York City and spent time in Flatbush in the early 2000s, and both his upbringing as well as his experience in New York City influenced his approach to storytelling. 

O’Neill’s latest novel, “Godwin,” is available to purchase in most book retailers.