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The Emperor of Ice-Cream (novel)
The Emperor of Ice-Cream is a 1965 coming-of-age novel[1] by writer Brian Moore. Set in Belfast during the Second World War, it tells the story of 17-year-old Gavin Burke who, admitting "war was freedom, freedom from futures", defies his nationalist and Catholic family by volunteering as an air raid warden with the largely Protestant ARP.[1] The novel follows Gavin's journey as he realises that there are those on the other side of the city's bitter communal division whose friendships offer a wider horizon. Based in part on Moore's own wartime experiences,[2][3] he described it as the most autobiographical of his novels.[2] Moore left Belfast in 1943 to join the British Ministry of War Transport and worked himself for a period with the ARP in London. The book is dedicated, as were all of Moore's subsequent novels, to his partner Jean,[4] who became his second wife two years after its publication. Its title is taken from Wallace Stevens' poem "The Emperor of Ice-Cream". The book was dramatised by the Northern Irish actor, playwright and theatre director Bill Morrison; the play was performed at Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1977.[5] References
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