This is a crazy tale about crazy people. Even the author could have been a little crazy. This, perhaps the most brilliant of his output, was turned down for publishing in 1940, and so he despaired, and it wasn't published until after his death in 1969. He had told everyone that he had lost the manuscript.

    His real name was Brian O'Nolan, born in County Tyrone in 1911, the fifth of twelve children, and died "April fools day" 1966. He worked as an irish civil servant from 1935 to 1953, which meant that he was unable to publish under his real name. He was said to have used a number of pseudonyms but the only other one I know of was Myles na Gopaleen, which he used to publish a column in The Irish Times.

    I have also read "At-Swim-Two-Birds" and "The Dalkey Archive" by him and I'm happy to report that they are written in a very similar style, and they are both very peculiar also. And of course highly recommended by me, however "The Third Policeman" is a masterpiece, one of those literary treasures that you are so unlikely to come across on your own, but when found, you would certainly recommend it to everybody you meet, when talking about books.

    Even now Flann O'Brien is mentioned in the same breath as James Joyce, by modern, well read, media aficionados and the style of his writings have become an important standard in their own right