The two volumes which make up Northern Irish Literature 1956-2006: The Imprint of History identify the contexts for literary production over the past fifty years, and address the troubled intersections where literature, history and politics meet. Chapters focus on a particular phase of the 'Troubles', offering detailed readings of both canonical and less-known texts by writers from different traditions and generations. Unlike existing studies, which are generally confined to a single author or genre, these volumes explore the diversity of Northern Irish literature and demonstrate how writers and texts continue to engage in enriching, insightful dialogue. This first volume begins with the economic decline of the mid-1950s and identifies this, along with Britain's policy of decolonisation and the growth of ecumenism, as a major factor in the subsequent conflict. The crisis within unionism coincided with a period of reconfiguration within the nationalist community. The book examines how these growing tensions were depicted in drama, fiction and poetry, and the different strategies deployed by writers in attempting to represent the accelerating political collapse, polarisation and violence. It celebrates their exemplary attempts at creating a literature able to confront and counter the viciousness and injustice abroad in the province, and change perceptual angles.