Alexander McCall Smith has won the 2015 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction for his Irish-set novel, Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party.
This is the first time McCall Smith, the bestselling author of the No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and the 44 Scotland Street series, has appeared on the comic fiction prize shortlist. He defeated shortlist rivals Caitlin Moran, Nina Stibbe, Joseph O’Neill and Irvine Welsh among others and joins an impressive list of previous winners including Edward St Aubyn, Howard Jacobson, Marina Lewycka and the late Sir Terry Pratchett.
Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party follows larger than life Irish-American Cornelius P “Fatty” O’Leary and his doting wife as they embark on the trip of a lifetime to Ireland from the States. Almost immediately, things go terribly wrong for the hapless couple: the plane seats in economy class are far too small, Irish bathroom furniture proves not as commodious as they would have liked and all the time Fatty must put up with the unthinking cruelty of strangers.
Packed with McCall Smith’s trademark wit, Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party has been described as a hilarious and touching portrayal of a kindly and misunderstood soul.
McCall Smith said: “I am greatly honoured to be awarded the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. I very much enjoyed writing that book and if there are those who are enjoying reading it, then I am content. I am also content with the jeroboam of champagne, the 52 Wodehouse novels, and the pig that go with this award. That is what I would call a very well-balanced prize.”
James Naughtie, one of the judges, said: “It’s right and proper to couple the names of Alexander McCall Smith and P Wodehouse. No writer in recent times has been a more prolific dispenser of wit. He makes people laugh out loud and, like everyone who understands the absurdities of life, he understands sadness too.”
Following in the footsteps of previous winners, McCall Smith will be presented with a locally-bred Gloucestershire Old Spot pig, which will be named after his winning novel, at the Hay Festival on May 26th, a fitting prize for a man who was once part-owner of a small pig farm on the west coast of Scotland.
British Council Ireland hosts a free reading by Alexander McCall Smith in the Abbey Presbyterian Church, Parnell Square North, Dublin, on Wednesday, May 20th, at 6.30pm, as part of Words on the Street - European Literature Night.
The British Council in association with the International Writers Festival Dublin also hosts an evening in conversation with Alexander McCall Smith this Thursday, May 21st, at 8pm, in Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin. Tickets: €12, €10
