Eugene McCabe was born in Glasgow in 1930. His novel Death and Nightingales, published in 1992, was described by Michael Ondaatje as 'a deeply moving, powerful, and unforgettable book'; John Banville said that it 'should put Eugene McCabe in the first rank of contemporary Irish novelists', and Colm Toibin called it 'clearly one of the great Irish masterpieces of the century'.