A literary round-up

Dowd’s work goes on

The posthumous legacy of author Siobhan Dowd, who died in August 2007, continues to grow. In a week that saw her novel, Solace of the Road, among 10 books shortlisted for the Bisto Children's Book of the Year Awards, it was announced that fellow children's books author Patrick Ness will complete an unfinished work by her. O'Dowd, who died of breast cancer aged 47, didn't live to see her career take off in recent times with posthumous publications and widespread public recognition. Her work won the Carnegie Medal for children's literature last year.

Among the material Dowd left behind was the beginning of a novel, held by Walker Books. Now Ness has taken Dowd’s preliminary pages and is to write a novel from them. For readers aged 10 and upwards, the story is about a boy coming to terms with his mother’s illness, with help coming from an unexpected source.

Ness, who never met O’Dowd, describes her as an irreverent and hugely welcoming writer. “I certainly don’t see this as a humourless, po-faced eulogy – I don’t get the feeling Siobhan would have liked that at all.”

The book will be out in May.

A Boyne fairy tale

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamasauthor John Boyne has a new children's book – his second – coming out this year. Children's imprint David Fickling Books will publish Noah Barleywater Runs Awayin September, with illustrations by Oliver Jeffers.

The book is about a boy who runs away from home into a forest. Boyne says it is a very different work from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, “more fairy tale than fable, with a mystery at the centre and a surprise at the end”.

Published in 42 languages in 50 countries, and selling more than five million copies, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamaswas also made into the gripping film of the same title, starring Vera Farmiga and David Thewlis.

Wilde celebrations

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, is this year's choice for the Dublin: One City, One Book campaign next month. The event goes digital this year, with a recreation of the novel's famous Dorian Gray portrait, which will change and deteriorate, as in the novel, throughout April.

Other events to celebrate the featured book and its Dublin-born author will be performances of some of Wilde’s plays in St Ann’s Church and explorations of his Dublin on historian Pat Liddy’s walking tours.

The writer's grandson, Merlin Holland, who has researched Wilde's life for 20 years, will visit Dublin during the festival. Holland was co-editor, with Rupert Hart-Davis, of The Complete Letters of Oscar Wildeand editor of Irish Peacockand Scarlet Marquess, the first uncensored version of his grandfather's 1895 trials. He is also the author of The Wilde Album, which includes previously unpublished photographs of Wilde and focuses on how the scandal surrounding Wilde affected his family.

A new edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray, priced €9.99, will be published by Penguin Classics to coincide with One City, One Book and the novel will be the April choice of Rosita Boland's online Irish Times Book Club. More details at dublinonecityonebook.ie.

Sea creatively

“Water works” is the buzzword for a children’s workshop at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, on Dublin’s Ely Place today, when small fry get to explore the work of RHA artist Gary Coyle and design and create their own seascapes and imaginary 3D sea creatures.

The workshop is from 2.30pm to 4pm, priced €15, including all materials. If parents want to help, they are more than welcome.

To book, telephone 01-6612558 or e-mail frontofhouse@rhagallery.ie.