Although the Lannan Foundation announced its award list only on Tuesday, Co Tipperary poet Dennis O'Driscoll (below) heard of his $75,000 award three weeks ago. He paraphrased poet John Berryman to describe his shock: "Surprise me on an ordinary day with a blessing gratuitous" - he added that in his case it could be "a blessed gratuity".
Lannan, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a private foundation which supports contemporary literature, visual arts and native American communities. Recipients are recommended by an anonymous network of scholars and publishers.
Previous Irish recipients include John Banville, William Trevor, Mary Morrissey, Eavan boland, Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon. This year recipients included novelist Jamaica Kincaid, Gish Jen and poet Louise Gluck. Adrienne Rich was given a lifetime achievement award.
O'Driscoll has no immediate plans for his windfall and continued at his desk in the Customs and Excise head office in Dublin when he got the 4pm phone call delivering the good news. He might buy the Oxford English Dictionary on CDROM, he says, and might try and to take time off work - " it would be nice to be duty free for a while".
Benedict Kiely will preside over a gathering at the James Joyce Centre in Dublin next Thursday when other writers including Seamus Heaney, Tom Kilroy and John Montague will pay tribute to his life and work. Having celebrated his 80th birthday this August, the tireless Kiely has also published two books this year. But don't go besieging the Joyce centre - t-Tickets to the event were booked out weeks ago.
Meanwhile yesterday, friends and admirers of the late J.M. O'Neill assembled in Dublin's Waterstone's in Dawson Street to hear reminiscences and readings by novelists Shane Connaughton and Peter Sheridan, journalists and critics Bruce Arnold and Eoghan Harris(who wrote the film script for O'Neill's novel, Open Cut),, broadcaster Kevin O'Connor and publisher Steve MacDonagh. This week also saw the publication of O'Neill's posthumous novel, Rellighan, Undertaker, by MacDonagh's Kerry-based press, Brandon. the Kerry-based Brandon Press.
With Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes still holding its own in the non-fiction bestseller lists, interest in the next installment, 'Tis, is high. He breezed into Dublin yesterday for and, before he departs next Wednesday, will have fulfilled a number of promotions for 'Tis, as well as visiting family in Limerick and Northern Ireland. So, if you want to get something signed by the literary lion, he'll be you have a number of opportunities: today in Dublin today he'll be in Eason's on O'Connell Street today at 12.30 p.m. and Hughes & Hughes in the St Stephen's Green shopping centre at 5 p.m.; tomorrow catch him at O'Mahony's bookshop in Limerick at 2.30 p.m.; and on Monday he'll be in Eason's in Cork at 12.30 p.m. McCourt will also be speaking at a lunch in aid of the Open Door charity in the Glenview Hotel, Wicklow, on Tuesday.
Sadbh