Liam O'Flaherty was an Irish author and playwright who wrote novels, short stories, and plays. He is best known for his 1925 novel The Informer, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was made into an Academy Award-winning film in 1935. He also wrote several other novels, including Famine (1937) and The Sniper (1923). O'Flaherty was a member of the Irish Republican Army and was active in the Irish War of Independence. He died in 1984 at the age of 86.