Alexander McCall Smith recently won the 2015 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction for his Irish-set novel, Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party. It's a wonderfully witty tale of a US tourist's mishaps and misfortunes while on a long-cherished trip to Ireland with his wife. Set in the 1970s, it casts an Irish Times literary reviewer as the main villain of the piece, while hilariously and sympathetically unpicking themes of identity and home.
To mark the win, Gary Quinn brought the author to the Palace Bar in dublin, long a literary and journalistic hangout and once the pub of choice of one of McCall Smith's literary heroes, Brian O'Nolan/Myles na gCopaleen. It's also a great whiskey bar and landlord Willie Ahern led a wonderful whiskey tasting through the interview. You can listen to it here.
