McKeon’s ‘Solace’ is voted book of the year
The winner of the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book of the Year for 2011 is Solace, the debut novel by the Longford-born arts journalist, playwright and Irish Timescontributor Belinda McKeon. The public was asked to vote for its favourite title from the 10 category winners announced at the recent Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards. Solace, which was named best Irish newcomer of the year at the awards, topped the poll.
Widely praised by reviewers and by many of Ireland’s established novelists, including Anne Enright, Colm Tóibín and Colum McCann, Solace has been described as “a fine example of the modern Irish novel encompassing the breadth of a country and acknowledging an entire generation. In it we feel a young writer carefully negotiating her relationship to her native Ireland and to its literary traditions”.
The triumphant author will be doing a reading and signing at the Bord Gáis Energy bookshop of the year, Crannóg Bookshop, on Church Street in Cavan, at 12.30pm today.
Two poets withdraw from TS Eliot shortlist
In the UK, two poets have withdrawn from the prestigious TS Eliot Poetry Prize. The £15,000 award in memory of the writer is organised by the Poetry Book Society, which lost its UK Arts Council sponsorship this year. It brokered a three-year sponsorship deal with Aurum, an investment bank that deals in hedge funds. The English poet Alice Oswald was the first to withdraw her collection from the shortlist, followed by the Australian John Kinsella. Both poets have stressed that they have no specific allegation to make against Aurum but are unhappy with the principle of sponsorship from financial institutions. Oswald says she believes that “poetry should be questioning, not endorsing, such institutions”. Kinsella describes himself as “an anti-capitalist in full-on form”.
It’s an awkward moment for the Poetry Book Society – and will doubtless give many arts institutions a shiver down the spine at a time when links between the sector and big business are being stressed and even celebrated. If it provokes open and intelligent discussion on a thorny topic, the protest will not have been in vain. Just as long as it doesnt cast a shadow over the blameless poets whose first-rate collections remain in the running for the prize, namely: John Burnside, Carol Ann Duffy, Leontia Flynn, David Harsent, Esther Morgan, Daljit Nagra, Sean O’Brien and Bernard O’Donoghue.
Dubliners, Liberty belles, lend us your ears
Anyone who hasn’t yet seen the Dublin Writers: Born Here, Lived Here, Wish We Were Here exhibition at the Nicholas of Myra Parish Centre on Carman’s Hall, off Francis Street in Dublin 8, should head for this venue, in the heart of the Liberties, next Wednesday at 8pm, when there will be a free performance to celebrate the city in prose, verse and song. You’ll find Dracula rubbing shoulders, so to speak, with Eliza Doolittle, and the Brother sharing a pint of plain with Zozimus the blind bard. There will be readings and songs from Joyce, Kavanagh, MacNeice, Yeats and Behan.
Honeydripping poetry in the Bee-Loud Glade
If you are shopping in central Dublin today, get yourself to Smock Alley, on Exchange Street Lower, for the wonderfully named Bee-Loud Glade Wild Winter Cabaret, which features poetry from, among others, Leanne Quinn, Joseph Woods, Frances Harvey, Gerry Murphy and Macdara Woods, as well as music and songs from Roger Gregg. Admission is €10/€8, and the gig starts at 7.30pm.
