In The Irish Times this Saturday, Sally Rooney tells me about her new novel, Intermezzo, while Richard Osman discusses his new crime fiction series with Henrietta McKervey. Alan Gilsenan writes about following in the footsteps of Samuel Beckett and his father in the Dublin and Wicklow mountains in advance of a walk he is leading this Sunday as part of the Shaking Bog Festival. And there is a Q&A with Carlo Gébler about his career and his latest book, A Cold Eye.
Reviews are Val Nolan on The Women Behind the Door by Roddy Doyle; Ian Hughes on Money: A Story of Humanity by David McWilliams; Paschal Donohoe on Atlas of Finance: Mapping the Global Story of Money by Dariusz Wojcik; Michael Cronin on the best new translations; Cauvery Madhavan on The Golden Road by William Dalrymple; Jane Conroy on Pierre Joannon, Graham Greene, Ireland and the Honorary Consul. A View from the South of France; Oliver Farry on The Red Emperor: Xi Jinping and the New China by Michael Sheridan; Adrienne Murphy on A History of Irish Magic by Sally North and James North; Jenny McAuley on Charlotte by Martina Devlin; Pat Carty on Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari; Ray Burke on Sophie: The Final Verdict by Senan Molony; and Robert Gerwarth on Crimean Quagmire: Tolstoy, Russell and the Birth of Modern Warfare by Gregory Carleton.
This weekend’s Irish Times Eason offer is Normal People by Sally Rooney, just €5.99, a €6 saving.
Belfast author Lucy Caldwell has been shortlisted for the fourth time for the 2024 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University, which was announced this evening, on BBC Radio 4′s Front Row. Caldwell, who won the prize in 2021, is shortlisted for Hamlet, a love story.
Also shortlisted are Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2005, and Granta Best of Young British Novelist 2013 Ross Raisin; memoirist, novelist and short story writer Will Boast; and new names, finance lawyer Manish Chauhan and Vee Walker, a former museums and heritage expert.
Set in locations across the globe; from Nice to Sicily, from the Midlands to New York, the stories centre ‘compassion and understanding’ with a ‘collision of cultures’, generations, and communities reflecting the realities and universal truths of life in the 21st century. The stories were variously inspired by the ‘dark kitchens’ of the gig economy; Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the ‘Choose Your Own Ending’ books; a chance encounter with a chihuahua in Nice; a refugee camp in Sicily and a desire to explore love and acceptance in the face of uncompromising faith.
The award is one of the most prestigious for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000, and four further shortlisted authors £600 each. The 2024 winner will be announced live on BBC Radio 4′s Front Row on October 1st.
The five stories will be broadcast in turn at 3.30pm next week from Monday to Friday, September 16th to 20th, on Radio 4 and available to listen to on BBC Sounds. The shortlisted stories will also be published in an anthology by Comma Press.
This year’s judging panel is led by radio and TV presenter Paddy O’Connell, novelist and critic, Michael Donkor; memoirist, novelist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo; writer and professor of writing at Lancaster University, Jenn Ashworth; and returning judge, Di Speirs, Books Editor at BBC Audio.
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The Wainwright Prize is awarded annually to books which most successfully inspire readers to embrace nature and the outdoors and develop a respect for the environment. This year’s winning books celebrates the deep connections between humanity and nature through powerful storytelling.
The Nature Writing Prize was awarded to Late Light: The Secret Wonders of a Disappearing World (Manilla Press) by environmental humanities lecturer Michael Malay, which combines natural history with memoir in the story of his journey as an Indonesian Australian making a new home for himself in England.
The Writing on Conservation Prize has been won by physicist and oceanographer Helen Czerski for Blue Machine: How the Ocean Shapes Our World (Torva), an exploration in to how the oceans are vital in a multitude of ways to life on the rest of the planet, drawing from her years of experience in marine science.
Novelist Katya Balen has won the Children’s Writing on Nature and Conservation Prize for Foxlight (Bloomsbury Children’s), a story celebrating nature as twins venture into the ferocious wildlands to find their mother.
Irish authors Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin were awarded ‘Highly Commended’ in the Children’s Writing on Nature and Conservation for Global, the first ever graphic novel to be shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize award, illustrated by Giovanni Rigano.
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The Heaney-Miłosz Residency, a writer-in-residence programme celebrating the friendship between Nobel Laureates Seamus Heaney and Czesław Miłosz, is now open for applications.
The residency offers the chance for an emerging or mid-career writer, resident on the island of Ireland, to spend up to six weeks next year in the city of Krakow, Poland. Following a competitive selection process, the selected writer will stay in the former apartment of Polish poet and writer Czesław Miłosz.
First launched in 2022, the residency is a partnership between the Estate of Seamus Heaney, the Krakow Festival Office (KBF), and the Irish Embassy in Poland. Further details on the application process can be found here. The deadline is October 21st.
Tánaiste, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence, Micheál Martin TD, said: “The Heaney-Milosz Residency honours the legacy of two Nobel Laureates, and is a powerful symbol of the ties between Irish and Polish literature, poetry and culture. Following a successful first Residency by the poet Alice Lyons in 2023, we hope that the 2025 Residency will be an equally valuable and enriching experience for an Irish writer.”
Catherine Heaney, of the Estate of Seamus Heaney, said: “Poland – and the city of Krakow in particular – held an important place in my father’s affections and imagination, especially as the home of his friend and poetic mentor, Czesław Miłosz. The opportunity to celebrate their friendship and, at the same time, provide a writer with the creative space to pursue their own work, is something that Dad would have been extremely proud of.”
Commencing in October 2025, the residency will provide a chosen writer with the space and time to develop their work in the beautiful surroundings of Krakow city. During the residency period, the writer will have the opportunity to take part in a variety of events and meetings with representatives of the creative and literary community in Krakow. At the end of the residency, the writer will provide a written reflection on their experience in Krakow.
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Broadcaster and author Richard Curran will deliver the Keynote Address at the 2024 Allingham Festival on Wednesday, November 6th, speaking on the promise and perils of Artificial Intelligence.
Richard Curran is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author. He presents The Business show on RTÉ Radio 1, and his columns appear in the Irish Independent and the Sunday Independent. Host of eight series of Dragon’s Den on RTÉ, he has also co-written two books and made television documentaries. He serves as a qualified mediator.
The 2024 Allingham Festival will run from 6-10 November in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal. Highlights of the Festival will include the gripping documentary In the Shadow of Beirut by Garry Keane, author interviews and a book launch by popular journalist Sinéad Crowley, and a concert by delta-blues prodigy Muireann Bradley. Details of the Festival are posted online at allinghamfestival.com.
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Dingle Lit Festival take places from Friday, November 15th to Sunday, November 17th, and full information is now available on the website dinglelit.ie, where one can also get tickets for the author events and specialised literary workshops.
The 2024 festival will feature established Irish authors, including Oliver Jeffers, Roddy Doyle, Donal Ryan, Diarmad Ferriter, Róise Ní Bhaoill, Muireann Ní Chíobháin, Oein deBairduin and Natalie Ní Chasaide, Peadar Ó Riada, Cecelia Ahern, Barbara Scully, Ann Marie Flanagan and Felicity Hayes McCoy.
Sheila O’Reilly, Festival Director, remarked, “We are proud to see how far Dingle Lit Festival has come since its inception. Each year, the festival grows and evolves, and we are excited to continue our tradition of celebrating the best of Irish literature in such a vibrant and picturesque setting. We look forward to welcoming everyone for another engaging and enriching experience in November.”
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Books Ireland is partnering with bookshops nationwide for Irish Book Week when the expanded and updated Irish Writers Handbook 2025 hits the shelves. Irish Book Week celebrates bookshops, publishers, writers, illustrators, and poets, and runs from 19–26 October. Editor of the handbook Ruth McKee said that the guide is the perfect match for Irish Book Week as it brings all parts of the book world together in one publication to offer writers advice and encouragement. ‘Donal Ryan said that the world was a better place for having The Irish Writers Handbook in it and we feel the same way about our fantastic booksellers and bookshops all around the country. We’re really pleased to be the book for Irish Book Week this year.’
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An exciting new programme has been announced for the Red Line Book Festival on October 14th – 20th 2024 with over 40 literary events and an eclectic mix of established writers and new voices. Highlights include an evening with international bestselling author, Marian Keyes; the ever-popular True Crime Night with former detective Pat Marry and investigative journalist Mick Clifford in conversation with Muireann O’Connell; Donal Ryan, and comedian Emma Doran talking about her debut book, Mad Isn’t It? Authors Sean Murray, Nicky Ryan and Christine Bohan as they share the harrowing Stardust Tragedy as they discuss The Last Disco. For those consumed by Wanderlust; Rory King, Pól Ó Conghaile and Fionn Davenport will chat to travel blogger Nadia El Ferdaoussi
The events will take place in South Dublin County in locations such as The Civic, Rathfarnham Castle, Brú Chrónáin – Clondalkin Round Tower Visitor Centre, and the Pearse Museum highlighting the richness of the county’s built heritage as well as introducing dynamic new venues such as Work IQ in Tallaght Innovation Quarter.
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On Saturday, November 9th, at 1pm, as part of Dublin Book Festival, Máiría Cahill will discuss with journalist and writer Olivia O’Leary her harrowing memoir Rough Beast (Apollo), a story of unimaginable trauma and political corruption, but above all the story of one young woman’s defiance of those wielding power to inspire fear and silence, and their influence over elected politicians.
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Hesse Phillips, author of Lightborne will be in Dublin for an event at the Irish Writers Centre on September 25th, along with three other winners of the 2022 Novel Fair. It is free but booking a place is required.
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The winner of the 2024 Sarah Maguire Prize for poetry in translation is On the Contrary by Lia Sturua, translated by Natalia Bukia-Peters and Victoria Field, published by Fal and supported by Writers’ House Georgia. The winner was announced at a ceremony on Monday 9th September at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London.
This year’s shortlist contains two books by poets of Palestinian origin (You Can Be the Last Leaf by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, translated from Arabic by Fady Joudah, and Chaos, Crossing by Olivia Elias, translated from French by Kareem James Abu-Zeid) as well one from Georgia, and poets from Mexico, South Korea, Iran, Lebanon, and China.
In spring 2024, the Writers’ House in Tbilisi opened the Museum of Repressed Writers, a permanent exhibition dedicated to the Georgian writers whose lives and careers were destroyed by Stalinism. Less than six months later, the former director of the House has been replaced by a political appointee loyal to the ruling Georgian Dream party of Georgia. About 100 leading figures from Georgia’s literary world have now boycotted the institution due to “the dangerous authoritarian tendencies” the Ministry of Culture has displayed.
