Korb has a master's degree in English literature and creative writing and has written for a wide variety of educational publishers. In the following essay, she explores the process by which the privileged characters in "The News from Ireland" learn to shirk responsibility for the devastation of the Great Famine.

The prolific writer William Trevor is one of the modern masters of the short story. He turned to writing after he had already developed a successful career as a sculptor, and his talent for the written word quickly propelled him to fame. Despite his long-term residence in England and other locations in Europe, Trevor considers himself to be a wholly Irish author. As scholar Kristin Morrison points out, "Just as Trevor wrote about England from the vantage point of an outsider [in his earliest works], so later he began to write more and more about Ireland only...