Kerry Group Novel of the Year shortlist

In The Irish Times this Saturday, John Connolly talks to Fiona Gartland about his latest novel, The Instruments of Darkness. Olivia Laing tells Patrick Freyne about their new book, The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise. Tanja Maljartschuk, author of Forgottenness, translated by Zenia Tompkins and published by Bullaun Press, discusses her work and the war in Ukraine with Natalya Korniyenko, a Ukranian journalist now living in Galway. Robert O’Byrne, author of The Irish Aesthete: Buildings of Ireland, Lost and Found, asks why almost every Irish town has large numbers of properties falling into disrepair and why we allow this. And there is a Q&A with Elaine Feeney about her career and latest poetry collection, All the Good Things You Deserve.

Reviews are Paschal Donohoe on Daniel Susskind’s Growth: A Reckoning, We Can Do Better by Maja Göpel and; Conor Gearty on Human Rights: A Case for the Defence by Shami Chakrabarti; Martina Evans on the best new poetry; Val Nolan on The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes; Edel Coffey on Earth by John Boyne; Helen Cullen on One Girl Began by Kate Murray-Browne; John Boyne on Spirit Level by Richy Craven; Marianne Elliott on Peace Comes Dropping Slow by Denis Bradley; NJ McGarrigle on The Horse by Willy Vlautin; Catherine Toal on Lightborne by Hesse Phillips; Liam Bishop on This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things by Naomi Wood; and Sarah Gilmartin on Openings by Lucy Caldwell.

This Saturday’s Irish Times Eason offer is The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, just €5.99 with your paper, a €5 saving on a copy of the Irish Book of the Year and Nero novel of the year.

Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting, An Post Irish Book of the Year and Nero Book of the Year has now been shortlisted for the Kerry Group Novel of the Year, but there is no place on the five-strong shortlist for Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, which pipped it to the Booker Prize last November.

The other shortlisted titles are the Booker longlisted Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry; Anne Enright’s Women’s Prize shortlisted The Wren, The Wren; Naoise Dolan’s The Happy Couple; and Darragh McKeon’s Remembrance Sunday.

The adjudicators for this year’s award are Kit de Waal and Paul McVeigh. “In a year when Irish fiction has never been so strong, being asked to judge the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year was something of a poisoned chalice,” de Waal said. “It was nearly impossible to whittle down so many outstanding books to a shortlist of just five. It’s also been an immense privilege to be part of the award which is very dear to my heart as a previous winner.”

“I’ve been to Listowel Writers Week twice and enjoyed it immensely, so, it was an honour to be asked to judge the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year – and what a year!” McVeigh said. “I was thrilled to hear that Kit de Waal would be my co-judge, especially since she won the award herself with the stunning my Name is Leon. We read 65 books to create this shortlist of only five, and with the breathtaking works of prose we had this year, it was, at times, a painful process, not being able to include some truly incredible books, but, ultimately, it was a rewarding and unforgettable experience. We hope you enjoy our selection.”

The winner, who will receive a €20,000 prize, will be revealed on Wednesday, May 29th at the opening night of Listowel Writers Week, Ireland’s oldest literary and arts festival, first held in 1971.

Catherine Keogh of Kerry Group said: “Kerry Group has been a proud sponsor of Listowel Writer’s Week for 30 years and during that time we have witnessed a rich array of creativity, imagination, and passion from so many gifted authors. As we eagerly await the announcement of the winner next month, I want to extend our warmest congratulations to this year’s shortlisted writers, whose submitted works embody the artistic excellence we are proud to support.”

*

Up Late by Nick Laird, The Solace of Artemis by Paula Meehan and No Man’s Land by David Nash have been shortlisted for the 2024 Pigott Poetry Prize, Ireland’s largest monetary prize for a poetry collection with the winner being awarded €12,000 and the two shortlisted finalists each receiving €1,000.

More than 40 poetry books were submitted for this year’s award, whose adjudicators are poets Billy Collins and Annemarie Ní Churreáin.

Collins said: “It’s customary for judges of literary prizes to mention the difficulty of making their selections, given the high quality of the works at hand. It was a pleasure to discover with my fellow adjudicator, Annmarie Ni Churreáin, how closely our tastes in poetry overlapped. We are very happy with the results. A broader pleasure, too, was being associated with the distinguished and widely coveted Pigott Prize for Poetry”.

Mark Pigott said: “The Pigott Poetry Prize is celebrating its eleventh year and my family is thrilled at the breadth of outstanding Irish poetry that is being written every year. I would like to thank our adjudicators, Billy Collins and Annemarie Ní Churreáin for their hard work and thorough review of all the entrants and congratulate them on their excellent selection of this year’s shortlist which showcases the beauty, diversity and strength of Irish poetry”.

The winner will be announced on Wednesday, May 29th at the opening night ceremony of Listowel Writers Week.

My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor has been shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, one of the UK’s most prestigious literary prizes which honours the founding father of the historical novel.

The winner receives £25,000 and shortlisted authors each receive £1,500. Since it was founded 15 years ago by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, the Prize has awarded nearly £400,000 to writers and brought over 150 novels to wider public attention.

Shortlisted authors this year are from England, Ireland, Trinidad, Canada and Malaysia. The 2024 judging panel comprises Katie Grant (chair), James Holloway, Elizabeth Laird, James Naughtie, Kirsty Wark and Saira Shah. The judges said: “Joseph O’Connor’s My Father’s House has many of the elements of a Walter Scott classic – not least its wonderfully drawn cast in this thrilling tale of wartime Rome based on a real characters and events. Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty and the Gestapo commander Paul Hauptmann pit their wits against each other as O’Flaherty and his co-conspirators use every subterfuge they can to help Jews and Allied prisoners escape from under the noses of German Occupying Forces. It is beautifully constructed, with Rome, and in particular the Vatican City vividly rendered, and proves that WW2, in the hands of a novelist as fine as Joseph O’Connor, still has many important stories to tell.

“The Walter Scott Prize judging criteria – originality, innovation, ambition, durability and of course quality of writing – are beautifully showcased in our 2024 shortlist. In addition, we have six novels as diverse in their subject-matter as in style of writing: an attempted sexual revolution in nineteenth century London; dangerously entwined lives in 1940s Trinidad; gripping tensions in Nazi-occupied Rome; a gentle 1960s home-counties heartbreaker; stories within stories from the terminus of the Underground Railroad; and love, betrayal and scandal in the Straits Settlements of Penang.

“At the heart of each novel lies a deep understanding of humanity in all its quirky strengths and weaknesses, with each of the shortlisted authors having something new to say and a new way of saying it.”

Books must have been written in English, set more than 60 years ago, and published during 2023 in the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth. The winner will be announced at a special public event with the shortlisted authors at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose on June 13th.

Following its recent sold-out tour to London, Dublin, Belfast, Newry, Dundalk and the Edinburgh Festival, Blood Red Lines by Robert Rae is being staged in Stranmillis University College Drama Theatre, Stranmillis Road, Belfast, for one special performance on Wednesday, May 22nd, at 7.30pm.

The play, which received standing ovations at every performance, brings together the heart-wrenching testimonies of 11 people whose lives were forever changed by violence during the Troubles. This is a unique opportunity to hear the authentic voices of victims through the mediums of drama, music and song. For the first time, family members participate, who lost loved ones or who were seriously injured in the Republic as a result of the conflict. As Britain’s highly controversial Legacy Bill threatens to deny hope to all those seeking the truth, this is an urgent and timely piece of political theatre – a voice that demands to be heard.

Directed by award-winning theatre and film director Robert Rae and with newly composed songs by Tommy Sands, it is performed by Sands and the people whose story it tells, including the extraordinary fiddle player Peter O’Connor. Book here.

*

Mayo will host the world’s first arts festival dedicated to the ancient arts of the Irish wake on May 18th in Mulranny in the Old Convent.

The Keening Festival programme includes free walks, keening workshops, talks about the origin of the wake and its rites and an evening concert with acclaimed sean-nós singer Caitríona Ní Cheannabháin, Bafter winner and bardic poet Kevin Toolis and violinist Lisa Fuk’u’da. The composer Peter Reynolds has written original songs for a unique outdoor musical performance programmed for midday on May 18th at Mulranny Pier commemorating the Famine.

“The wake remains a defining feature of Irish society, a unique powerful tool which eases the grief and sense of loss many feel with the death of their loved ones. It is only right that at last we recognise and celebrate these ancient rituals and rites in what is the world’s first wake festival,” says festival organiser Kevin Toolis, author of My Father’s Wake: How the Irish Teach Us to Live, Love and Die.

“Across the world people always say the Irish do death well and that is because of the wake. So it’s great to be working with Mulranny Arts and Home to Mayo to create to the world’s first wake festival here at home in Mayo, where the wake is still going strong. We have had interest from all over Ireland and abroad in attending this unique festival celebrating the oldest rite of Irish culture.”

A full programme of the day’s events and how to book is available at: mulrannyarts.com/the-keening

*

This year’s West Cork Literary Festival promises to be bigger and busier than ever, with 82 different events featuring 80-plus authors over eight days including readings/interviews, showcases of emerging writers, professional learning events, three-day workshops, open-mic sessions, exhibitions, events for children and young adults and an event to mark the 50th anniversary of Bantry Library.

The line-up features Miriam Margolyes, Paul Lynch, Elizabeth Day, David Nicholls, Dolly Alderton, Irvine Welsh, Shane Hegarty, Paula Meehan, Hisham Matar and Colm Tóibín as well as newer authors Cathy Sweeney, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Maggie Armstrong, Mícheál McCann, Tobi Lakmaker, Victoria Kennefick, Michael Magee, Aoife Barry and Gustav Parker Hibbett.

Highlights include Forward Prize and TS Eliot Prize-winning poet Jason Allen-Paisant, in association with Poetry Ireland; Hedley Thomas, the Australian journalist behind The Teacher’s Pet true crime podcast which has been downloaded 52 million worldwide; a public interview with Palestinian author Adania Shibli; a visit from Canadian authors Shari Lapena and Nita Prose; a trip to Whiddy Island with wildlife documentary presenter Eoin Warner and a meeting of the newly-established Irish Children’s Authors and Creatives Guild.

West Cork Literary Festival takes place in Bantry from July 12th-19th and tickets for all events are now on sale www.westcorkmusic.ie/LFProgramme

*

The urban village of Phibsborough, Dublin 7 is gearing up for its arts and community festival running from Friday to Sunday, May 10th-12th.

It’s set to be an eclectic weekend of engaging events across arts and community – literature, music, comedy, drama, film, visual arts, waterways, family fun and more.

Headline acts include comedian Gearoid Farrelly, up-and-coming Dubin band Fizzy Orange in the iconic Dalymount stadium, authors Mike McCormack and Claire Kilroy in St Laurence’s Church, TUD campus, Justine McCarthy in interview with RTE’s Sharon Ni Bheoláin in the Mater hospital’s Pillar Room, Kurdish rising star Mohammad Syfkhan and many more. While for kids, meet the author events include Peter Donnelly (Little Wolf; the President series) and Natasha Mac a’Bháird (The Tower Ghost), and there’s a musical Teddy Bears Picnic, Paddle Boarding with Pure Magic Watersports and more.

Festival chairperson Dorothy Smith said: “We’re especially excited about this year’s festival. For the first time, we will host two dual-language events i nGaeilge and English. Our programme reaches across a range of cultures and experiences, which reflects the urban village of Phibsborough: a welcoming, multicultural place with a vibrant artistic community.”

Bookings are live: phizzfest.ie

*

Lilliput Press have acquired world rights for Charlotte by Martina Devlin. The novel explores the life of one of the world’s most famous literary figures, Charlotte Brontë, by fusing the drama of real events with Devlin’s distinctive style. Narrated by Mary Nicholls, who went on to marry Charlotte’s widower Arthur, we weave back and forth in time through the story of Brontë's marriage, her death, and her afterlife as a haunting presence in the lives of those closest to her. This is a story of three lives irrevocably bound, of passion and obsession, of mutual admiration and friendship, which shows us Brontë's brief but pivotal time in Ireland as never before.

Publisher Antony Farrell said: “The Brontë sisters are considered a jewel in the crown of England’s cultural heritage, so reclaiming Charlotte Brontë for Ireland, where she spent her honeymoon, conceived her only lost child, while seeking out her Prunty forebears in Co Down, is indeed a balancing of the books. The passionate author of Jane Eyre has never been so tellingly evoked in this poignant evocation of her end of days.”

Devlin said: “Objects have an undeniable power. After a visit to Haworth Parsonage Museum in Yorkshire, where I saw Charlotte Brontë’s dresses, sewing box, beaded moccasin slippers, wedding bonnet and a toy tea set she and her sisters played with as children, I became convinced I had to write a novel about her. I knew her father Patrick was an Irishman, as was her husband Arthur Bell Nicholls – but I was surprised to discover that he brought her to Ireland on their honeymoon in 1854. Arthur, who was Patrick’s curate in Haworth, was proud of his homeland and keen to share its attractions with his famous novelist wife.”