HarperCollins has appointed Eoin McHugh to the newly created role of Irish publishing director. He will lead a new publishing operation acquiring Irish authors for the Irish and British markets across literary and commercial fiction, as well as non-fiction and narrative non-fiction.
McHugh began his career at Fred Hanna’s bookshop, before becoming head of book purchasing at Eason. More recently, as publisher at Transworld Ireland, McHugh was responsible for many bestsellers including The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan.
HarperCollins UK CEO Charlie Redmayne said: “Bringing in Eoin to lead and extend our publishing in Ireland is a real step change for HarperCollins. Ireland is a hugely important book market for HarperCollins and this move will build on the great work done by our existing team over many years.”
McHugh said: “HarperCollins has long been a major publishing force in Ireland and I am thrilled at the opportunity to join such a great team with the ambition to further develop and expand their Irish publishing programme.”
Poet Eavan Boland is to receive this year's Bob Hughes Lifetimes Achievement Award at the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards on November 28th. Former recipients include: John Montague, JP Donleavy, Paul Durcan, John Banville, Maeve Binchy, John McGahern, Edna O' Brien, William Trevor, Seamus Heaney and Jennifer Johnston. Her first collection, 23 Poems (1962), was published when she was still a Trinity College student. Many collections later with a hugely distinguished career in academia still flourishing, and her poetry a fixture on the Leaving Cert, Boland's sense of wonder and enchantment at the power of poetry remains undimmed – she is currently editing Poetry Ireland Review. An awards spokesman said: "We cannot think of a more deserving Lifetime Achievement honoree than Eavan Boland. It's not just that her poetry is internationally acclaimed for its depth and subtlety, but Eavan has been a huge inspiration to women writers in a country that has not always treated them with appropriate respect. She joins our other Lifetime Achievers, Edna O'Brien, Jennifer Johnston and Maeve Binchy in a formidable pantheon of strong independent women writers. We salute her and congratulate her warmly".
Highlights of the awards will be broadcast on RTÉ One on November 29th at 9.30pm.
Three Irish writers are among the 20 authors shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards. Karl Geary has been shortlisted for the First Novel Award for Montpelier Parade; Forward Prize winner Sinéad Morrissey has been nominated for the Poetry Award for On Balance; Sarah Crossan features on the Children's Book Award shortlist with Moonrise. Winners in the five categories, who each receive £5,000, will be announced on January 2nd, 2018. The overall winner of the Costa Book of the Year, won last year by Sebastian Barry for Days Without End, will receive £30,000 and will be announced on January 30th.
Trinity College Dublin's literary journal Icarus Magazine is digitising its archive which is housed in the university library. However, the physical archive is incomplete. As well as collating the missing issues, the current editors are trying to figure out when, if at all, Icarus was not in print. The missing issues are Issue 45, 1965; Issues 56-65, 1968-1971; Issue 75, 1981-1982; and Issues 83-86, 1986- 1988. If anyone has either copies of these issues, or information as to when Icarus was dormant, please contact icarusmagsubmissions@gmail.com.
Peter Carey, a two-time winner of the Man Booker Prize, will be discussing his career and new novel, A Long Way From Home, with fellow author Joseph O'Connor on January 19th, 2018, at 7pm in the Pepper Canister Church, Dublin. This is a special event to open ithe 21st year of International Literature Festival Dublin, which runs from May 19th-27th, 2018. Tickets are €14 from ilfdublin.com or call 01 969 5259.
ILFD has appointed Sarah Webb as family and children's programmer. Webb was the family and schools curator of the Mountains to Sea dlr Book Festival for many years and is children's literary adviser to Listowel Writers' Week. Her latest book, A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea: Favourite Rhymes from an Irish Childhood (with Steve McCarthy), has been shortlisted for an Irish Book Award.
Winter Papers is hosting a series of events on December 15th and 16th in The Dock, Carrick-On-Shannon including readings and talks by Kevin Barry, June Caldwell, Hugh O'Conor and Claire Louise Bennett. thedock.ie
Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada, translated from German by American translator Susan Bernofsky and published by Portobello Books, has been announced as the winner of the inaugural Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.
