In The Irish Times this Saturday, YA writer and reviewer Claire Hennessy tells Sophie Grenham about her adult fiction debut. Artist Dorothy Cross tells Gemma Tipton the remarkable story of Cecil, UCC’s Egyptian mummy, and his return home, subject of her new book, Kinship: Home. There is an extract from The Big Fight: When Ali Conquered Ireland by Dave Hannigan. And a Q&A with Patricia Scanlan about City Girls Forever, her sequel to City Girls 35 years on.
Reviews are Kevin Power on The Routledge Companion to Twenty-First-Century Irish Writing, edited by Anne Fogarty and Eugene O’Brien; Naoise Dolan on The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue; Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi on The Science of Racism: Everything You Need to Know But Probably Don’t Yet by Keon West; Declan Burke on the best new crime fiction; Paschal Donohoe on Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service edited by Michael Lewis; Karlin Lillington on Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left by Eoin Higgins and The Siren’s Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource by Chris Hayes; Helen Cullen on Universality by Natasha Brown; Neil Hegarty on I Hear You by Paul McVeigh; Claire Adam on Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah; Sara Keating on children’s fiction; and Ruby Eastwood on I Want to Go Home But I’m Already There by Róisín Lanigan.
This Saturday’s Irish Times Eason offer is Munichs by David Peace, just €5.99, a €6 saving.
Two Irish writers, Seán Hewitt and Ferdia Lennon, have been shortlisted for the world’s largest and most prestigious literary award for young writers, the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize.
Judge Max Liu said of Lennon’s debut novel, Glorious Exploits: “Ferdia Lennon’s first novel signals the arrival of an assured and ambitious voice in contemporary fiction. By combining an ancient setting with a contemporary idiom, he puts a fresh spin on the historical novel, telling his characters’ story with ceaseless energy and inventiveness. The judges agreed that it is funny, moving and delivers a message about the importance of art that could not be more timely.”
Judge Namita Gokhale praised Hewitt’s poetry collection, Rapture’s Road: “In Rapture’s Road, Sean Hewitt’s moving work spoke to me through the sure tread of the verses and their tremulous shadows. This is poetry that believes in beauty and the power of words. These luminous nightscapes , haunted by love and loss, carry the assurance of rigorous craft.”
Worth £20,000, this global accolade recognises exceptional literary talent aged 39 or under, celebrates the international world of fiction in all its forms including poetry, novels, short stories and drama. The prize invokes the memory of Dylan Thomas to support the writers of today, nurture the talents of tomorrow, and celebrate international literary excellence.
Also shortlisted were Yael van der Wouden for The Safekeep; Rebecca Watson for I Will Crash; Eley Williams for Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good; and Yasmin Zaher for The Coin.
The winner will be announced during a ceremony in Swansea on May 15th.
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Debut author Harriet Baker has won the £10,000 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award for Rural Hours (Allen Lane), a biography of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann.
In Rural Hours, Harriet Baker tells the story of three different women who moved to the countryside and were forever changed by it. Following long periods of creative uncertainty and private disappointment, each of Baker’s subjects are invigorated by new landscapes. In the country, they find their paths: to convalescence and recovery; to sexual and political awakening; and, above all, to personal freedom and creative flourishing.
Bristol-based Harriet Baker has written for the London Review of Books, Paris Review, New Statesman, TLS, Apollo and frieze. She read English at Oxford and holds a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London. In 2018, she was awarded the Biographers’ Club Tony Lothian Prize. Rural Hours is her first book.
Chair of judges, Johanna Thomas-Corr, said: “Harriet Baker’s Rural Hours has made me excited about literary criticism again. She has succeeded stunningly in her task of showing how transformative country life can be for a writer’s imagination. Every page of this quietly confident debut is inspiring, crafted as it is with deep intelligence and maturity of thought.”
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Eoin McNamee’s latest novel The Bureau will be launched by author, journalist and broadcaster Dearbhail McDonald in Hodges Figgis on April 1st from 6pm to 8pm.
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fallow is a new literary journal from Fallow Media, featuring fiction, poetry, essays, and interviews from some fine writers. It will be publishing twice a year, with issue two will be out in the autumn.
The first issue includes new fiction from Patrick Nathan, Oisín Fagan, and Chris Beausang, poetry by Eva Griffin, Ellen Dillon, and Wayne Koestenbaum, and essays by Helen Charman and Greg Gerke, as well as interviews with Gabriel Josipovici and Pascale Sardin.
Issue one is available to order now from the website. You can also subscribe here. A launch party is being held on April 10th, at Books Upstairs in Dublin. There will be readings and wine. It’s free and all are welcome.
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The AE George Russell Society has put together an impressive schedule of events running from April 4th - 6th in Armagh City and south Armagh. Healing is the theme for the Spring School, which celebrates the life and work of AE (George Russell) through music, poetry, song, art, literature, myth, history & culture. For further information, please see programme.
