In The Irish Times tomorrow, Grace Wilentz talks to Adrienne Murphy about the untimely deaths of her parents when she was still at school, her move to Ireland from New York and her poetry collections. On the eve of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby’s centenary, Mary M Burke argues that it is the great Irish diaspora novel.
Reviews are Kevin Power on the Irish literary magazine scene; Tony Clayton-Lea on the best new music books; Declan Ryan on the best new poetry; Brian Cliff, Elizabeth Mannion and Declan Burke on their favourite crime fiction of 2024; Pippa Conlon on Small Rain by Garth Greenwell; Paul D’Alton on Letters by Oliver Sacks; NJ McGarrigle on The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World by David Graeber; Paul Larkin on Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel by Edwin Frank; Luke Gibbons on The Color of Family: History, Race, and the Politics of Family Ancestry by Michael O’Malley; Donald Clarke on Dear Orson Welles & Other Essays by Mark Cousins; Adrienne Murphy on I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest with You by Miranda Hart; and Jenny McAuley on Every Valley: The Story of Handel’s Messiah by Charles King.
This weekend’s Irish Times Eason offer is Three Little Birds by Sam Blake, just €5.99, a €6 saving.
Sebastian Barry was named Chevalier in the French Ordre des Arts et Lettres by French ambassador Céline Place at a ceremony in Dublin on Tuesday evening.
The honour reflects his tremendous contribution to Irish literature which has strongly echoed in France since the first French publication of his work in 1996.
Accepting the award, Barry said that he was deeply moved to receive the letter that he was to be awarded this radiant honour: “Chevalier, heavens! Frankly I cried. Like many Irish people of many generations, I have strong feelings for France. I lived there as a passionate young writer of 22 in the belief that to be a writer it would be optimum to make a start in the city of literature. It was an instinct with deep historical roots. I was in love with the old houses and the river and the recompensing parks. The heroic tramps and the metro and the numbing winter. I was as poor as the proverbial mouse but rich because I was living in the speaking sculpture of the city. I always believe myself in my private mind to be a secret citizen, if I may be so bold as to say so, and this deeply honouring and honourable award seems quietly to frank my invisible passport. It calls me back to youth and anchors me as an older writer.”
Barry’s novels have been translated and published in French by Joëlle Losfeld since 2003. Over the past 20 years, they have developed a real friendship and professional relationship.
Greatly appreciated by French readers and the national press, Barry’s work has been frequently selected for prestigious French literary awards such as the Femina prize for foreign novel and Elle’s readers’ prize. His last novel Old God’s Time (Au bon vieux temps de Dieu) was awarded Best foreign novel for 2023 at a ceremony in Paris. This prize illustrates the importance that Irish literature commands in France, along with previous Irish winners including Colum McCann in 2020 and Colm Tóibín in 2005.
Built on the long-standing and strong literary ties between our two countries, the Franco-Irish co-operation in literature continues to flourish through a series of flagship initiatives. Highlights include the successful Franco-Irish Literary Festival created in 2000, the new literary translation residency, the Choix Goncourt for Irish students, the Publication Support Programme and the Michel Déon Prize.
*
The Trustees of the Estate of Katherine Kavanagh have awarded the 2024 Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowships to three Irish poets. Kate Newmann receives €8,000 and Annemarie Ní Churráin and Karl Parkinson €4,000 apiece.
Patrick Kavanagh’s widow, Katherine (born Katherine Barry Moloney), in her will left all rights in her husband’s works and all royalties from them to trustees who were directed to apply the income to help Irish poets, in their middle years, who are in need of assistance.
Kate Newmann was born in Dromore, Co. Down and lives in Kilcar, Donegal. She is the daughter of Joan Newmann, with whom she cofounded Summer Palace Press in 1999. She is the editor of The Dictionary of Ulster Biography (1993). Her awards include: the William Allingham Poetry Award, The Swansea Award and The Listowel Festival Single Poem Award. Her collections include Coming of Age (Blackstaff, 1995), Thin Ice, (Abbey, 1999), The Blind Woman in the Blue House (Summer Palace, 2001), Belongings (with Joan Newmann, Arlen House, 2008), I Am a Horse (Arlen House, 2011), Grim (Arlen House, 2016), and Ask Me Next Saturday (Summer Palace, 2018).
Annemarie Ní Churreáin comes from the Donegal Gaeltacht. Bloodroot, published by Doire Press in 2017, was shortlisted for the Shine Strong Award and the Julie Suk Award. She is a recipient of a Next Generation Artist Award and co-recipient of the Markievicz Award. She has received literary fellowships from USA, Germany and Scotland and was Writer-in-Residence at NUI Maynooth, and Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris.
She was a 2022 Decades of Centenaries Artist in Residence at Donegal County Archives Service. Ní Churreáin is also a librettist and theatre writer. The Poison Glen was published by The Gallery Press in 2021.
Karl Parkinson is a writer from Dublin. He is the author of novels The Blocks, The Grind, and three collections of poetry. He is published widely in Ireland, UK, and the USA. His work has been published in The Irish Times, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Ireland Review, RTÉ, and many other outlets.
*
The work of two Irish poets published by The Gallery Press features on RTÉ lyric fm this month. Sunday 15th December at 6pm sees the premiere of Lament for Art O’Leary, composer Irene Buckley’s first opera. The opera uses lyrics by poet Vona Groarke from her 2008 English-language version of Chaoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire. The Chaoineadh, composed by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill in 1773 following the murder of her husband, has been described as ‘the greatest poem written on these islands in the 18th century.’
First broadcast in 2019, on Sunday, December 29th at 6pm RTÉ lyric fm rebroadcasts Crossing the Sound, presented by poet Gerald Dawe, who died earlier this year. The poet goes on a poetic odyssey through the west of Ireland, explores the enduring appeal of its wild landscapes to writers and artists, and reads a selection of his poetry inspired by Galway and Mayo.
*
More than 7,000 writers, editors, translators, illustrators, publishers, agents, librarians, and other book industry workers have now joined the boycott of Israeli literary institutions seen as complicit in the dispossession of the Palestinian people since its launch in October. The public letter constitutes the largest boycott against Israeli cultural institutions in history.
Sally Rooney, Annie Ernaux, Arundhati Roy, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Rupi Kaur, Junot Díaz, Michelle Alexander, Judith Butler, Rachel Kushner and Valeria Luiselli were among the original signatories. Among the new signatories are Khaled Hosseini, Michael Rosen, Peter Carey, Omar El Akkad, Chris Kraus, R.O. Kwon, Brandon Taylor, Bette A. & Brian Eno, John Cusack and Greta Thunberg.
The signatories include winners of the Nobel Prize, Booker Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Giller Prize, MacArthur Fellowship, Miles Franklin Award, and National Book Award – including three of this year’s winners: Percival Everett, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, and Shifa Saltagi Safadi – and editors at each of the “Big Five”¹ publishing houses, and many independent publishers.
Germany’s Schelling Architecture Foundation rescinded a prize and €10,000 award to James Bridle, citing the writer and artist’s participation in the cultural boycott. In response, Bridle wrote: “The far right, and the denial of genocide that accompanies it, are on the march everywhere. Late enough to be ashamed, but never too late, I sign my name.”
Omar El Akkad, Giller Prize winning novelist, said, “Even if I wasn’t complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people (and I am: my tax dollars fund it), the least I can offer in solidarity is my non-involvement with any institutional machinery that actively or passively normalises this horror. We are writers: we may claim concern for the human condition or we may look away from the most grotesque, well-documented atrocity of our age, but we can’t do both.”
Bette A. & Brian Eno said, “We have chosen to sign the boycott to express our solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine, to support the Palestinian individuals and organisations that keep working for safety and peace, as well as the courageous Israeli individuals and organisations who publicly protest the oppression of the Palestinian people. It’s not an easy choice for us to boycott any literary institution – the book world is a place where we can connect across cultures, find nuance and bridges to peace. Unfortunately, since the Israeli government and its supporters have no hesitation in using literary institutions for propaganda, we consider our decision to boycott to be a way of taking this particular weapon out of their hands.”
*
The BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University (NSSA) and BBC Young Writers’ Award with Cambridge University (YWA) are now open for submissions.
Judge of the BBC National Short Story Award since its launch, Di Speirs is this year’s chair of judges. Marking the award’s 20th anniversary is a distinguished panel of returning judges uniquely positioned to assess how the short story has changed across the last two decades. Bestselling novelist William Boyd judged the inaugural award in 2006, and previous NSSA winners Lucy Caldwell and Ross Raisin and previous shortlistee Kamila Shamsie judged in 2020, 2012 and 2010 respectively.
Caldwell said: “The short story is a strange, magical, spellbinding form – for me, the best short stories cast a spell around you. While reading, your own world falls away and you’re in their thrall; you leave them dazed, and maybe a little changed. There is nothing I’m specifically looking for in terms of subject matter or style, but I know I’ll see, or rather feel it when I encounter it, that sure-footedness, that commitment – whether sincere or wildly satirical, I’ll feel the hairs on the back of my neck rise, my breathing catch, feel the quality of my attention change – the story will have me, and I’ll go wherever it wants to take me. I can’t wait.”
The deadline for receipt of entries is 9am on March 17th. The shortlist will be announced on BBC Radio 4′s Front Row at 7.15pm on September 11th. The announcement of the winners will be on September 30th. bbc.co.uk/nssa bbc.co.uk/ywa
*
Little Island Books announce the acquisition of the English-language debut by leading Irish-language author Máire Zepf. World rights in all languages in The Cloud Kingdom have been acquired directly from the author by publisher Matthew Parkinson-Bennett.
Simultaneously, Little Island have signed world English rights in Zepf’s award-winning Irish-language picture book Míp, illustrated by Paddy Donnelly. Rights were acquired by Parkinson-Bennett from Irish-language publisher Futa Fata.
