Angela Bourke is a senior lecturer in Irish at University College, Dublin. She has been a visiting professor at Harvard University and the University of Minnesota. She broadcasts and writes regularly on Irish oral tradition and literature. A short story collection, By Salt Water, was published in 1996. She is the joint editor of The Field Day Anthology of Irish Women's Writing, which is due to be published next year. The Burning of Bridget Cleary is published by Pimlico.
Also shortlisted: Declan Kiberd, Irish Classics (Granta); Aidan Higgins, The Whole Hog (Secker and Warburg)