Seán Hewitt on Ondaatje Prize longlist; West Cork Literary Festival; Arts and Minds Festival

In The Irish Times this Saturday, in an extract from his new book, Killing Thatcher: The IRA, the Manhunt and the Long War on the Crown, Rory Carroll recounts the moment the bomb went off, the devastation it caused and the prime minister’s immediate reaction. Elaine Feeney tells Edel Coffey about her second novel, How to Build a Boat. Marilynn Richtarik explains why, for her new book, she mined literature to chart the shifts in thinking and talking about Northern Ireland that made the Belfast Agreement possible. Gwen Wilkinson introduces her new book, The Waters and the Wild, about building a canoe and paddling it around Ireland. And there is a Q&A with Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year winner Tom Benn.

Reviews are Mark Paul on Values, Voice and Virtue by Matthew Goodwin; The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit by Meg Russell and Lisa James; and The Conservative Party After Brexit by Tim Bale; Ray Burke on Alexa Hagerty’s Still Life With Bones; Pat Carty on Sounds Like Fun by Bryan Moriarty; Declan Burke on the best new crime fiction; Sarah Moss on Good Girls: A story and study of anorexia by Hadley Freeman; Rory Kiberd on There’s Something I Have to Tell You by Michelle McDonagh; Lucy Sweeney Byrne on Eyes Guts Throat Bones by Moïra Fowley; Emma Flynn on The Polite Act of Drowning by Charleen Hurtubise; Paul Delaney on Telling Truths: Evelyn Conlon and the Task of Writing edited by Teresa Caneda; Aifric McGlinchey on Go as a River by Shelley Read; Matthew O’Toole on Ties That Bind? Scotland, NI and the Union by Graham Walker and James Greer; and Sarah Gilmartin on The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa by Stephen Buoro.

The Last to Disappear by Jo Spain is this weekend’s Irish Times Eason offer, just €4.99, a €5 saving, when you buy the newspaper at any store.

Maynooth University hosts the second Arts and Minds Festival offering music, song and literature from May 3rd to 6th

The ‘Literary Lounge’ on Saturday, May 6th hosts Nicole Flattery, author of Nothing Special, the acclaimed novel that explores the world of Andy Warhol’s studio The Factory, famed for its wild parties in the 1960s.

The festival also welcomes bestselling author Deepti Kapoor whose novel Age of Vice set in New Delhi and described as “one of the most anticipated novels of 2023, as psychologically thrilling as The Godfather and as viciously entertaining as Succession”. There will be poetry readings with Seán Hewitt and Lauren Lawler. An Irish-language Interdisciplinary Arts Event in honour of the famous Lament for Art O’Leary composed 250 years ago this year, takes place on Saturday, May 6th also. maynoothuniversity.ie/arts-and-minds-festival-2023

The West Cork Literary Festival, a week-long celebration of writing and reading, takes place in and around the town of Bantry from July 7th to 14th.

The prestigious list of visitors this year includes Graham Norton, India Knight, Donal Ryan, Darina Allen, Rory O’Connell, Catherine Ryan Howard, John Banville, Megan Nolan, Raymond Antrobus, Disha Bose, Adam & David King, Clara Kumagai, Sally Hayden and Alice Zeniter, whose novel The Art of Losing won the 2022 Dublin Literary Award.

“We’re so excited to be able to bring all of these wonderful writers and events to West Cork this summer,” says festival director Eimear O’Herlihy. “It’s been another bumper year for publishing and Irish writers continue to shine.

“We’ve a jam-packed schedule of events from three-day writing workshops to masterclasses, readings by international and Irish authors with a good mix of Cork talent, a Pop Up Gaeltacht, showcases of new and emerging writers and yoga on the lawn of Bantry House and a sea swim for those who need a little time out. We’ve got novelists, short story writers, essayists, poets, illustrators, songwriters, nature writers, theatre, and much more. This year our events for children and young people are all free of charge and I hope that young people and families will take the opportunity to join the fun and discover a love of reading.”

Booking is now open on westcorkliteraryfestival.ie or (0)27 527 88

Seán Hewitt’s memoir All Down Darkness Wide (Vintage) has made the longlist for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize. Awarded to an outstanding work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry that best evokes the spirit of a place, the prize is an annual award of £10,000.

Hewitt recently won the 2022 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature.

The other authors selected by judges Samira Ahmed (Chair), Roger Robinson and Joelle Taylor are: Anthony Anaxagorou for Heritage Aesthetics; Philippa Holloway for The Half-life of Snails; Shehan Karunatilaka for The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida; Michelle de Kretser for Scary Monsters; Zaffar Kunial for England’s Green; Darren McGarvey for The Social Distance Between Us; Priscilla Morris for Black Butterflies and Marguerite Poland for A Sin of Omission.

Ahmed said: “I’ve loved how many of these books celebrate the endurance of love and decency in the face of injustice - from 19th century British-ruled South Africa, to the nuclear power politics of Cumbria and Ukraine, and the tearing apart of Sarajevo in the Bosnian War.”

Previous recipients of the prize have included Ruth Gilligan, Alan Johnson, Hisham Matar, Pascale Petit, Roger Robinson, Francis Spufford, Edmund de Waal and Louisa Waugh. Last year’s winner was Lea Ypi with Free, a coming of age memoir set amid political upheaval in Albania.

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Poetry Day Ireland takes place this year on Thursday, April 27th and the students and staff of the University of Limerick’s MA in Creative Writing programme are planning a lunchtime poetry reading which is open to the public. The free event, which will take place from 1pm to 2.15pm in the Atrium Area of the University Concert Hall, will feature guest poet Anton Floyd and showcase new poems from the MA students and staff of the programme.

“Poetry is often a vital act of compression” said Emily Cullen, the Meskell Poet in Residence. “In keeping with this year’s theme of ‘Message in a Bottle,’ the students on the MA in Creative Writing have composed urgent new poems with important messages about our times, which they will cast out for Poetry Day,” Cullen said.

“A particular focus of our event will be the plight of international refugees” said co-organiser, Eoin Devereux “and we are delighted that our guest poet, Anton Floyd, will be reading from his collection, Depositions (Doire Press, 2022), which engages with the international refugee crisis and themes of war and displacement.”

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Midleton Arts Festival 2023 holds a free library event on Saturday, May 20th, at 12.30-1.30pm with authors Arnold Thomas Fanning (Mind On Fire) and Christopher McCarthy (Dark Omens and Halos.)

Fanning and McCarthy are writers local to east Cork. For a long time Arnold has had an interest in the way walking can boost creativity as well as well-being, and has been researching and writing in this area extensively. Christopher has just had his first collection of short stories published. Here in the company of local writer Alice Barry Arnold will be reading from his writing that explores walking. Christopher will read from his collection and they will both discuss their writing influences, writing routines and road to publication.