Loose Leaves:Inevitably all eyes will be on Anne Enright's post-Booker book, and we don't have long to wait. Taking Pictures will be published by Jonathan Cape in spring and the exciting thing is that it's a short story collection, another genre in which the novelist Enright excels, writes Caroline Walsh.
Judging the one-off Davy Byrne's Irish Writing Award in honour of the centenary of Bloomsday in 2004, along with writers AL Kennedy and Tobias Wolff - both masters of the short story - it wasn't a surprise when the winning story, Honey (we read the entries without knowing who the authors were) turned out to be by Enright.
Sitting at the long judging session in the James Joyce Centre in Dublin one evening, deliberating on the stories on telephone party lines to the other judges in far-flung places, I remember Wolff talking about how Honey was the one he loved. In the citation he sent for the award ceremony later, he expanded on why it was a remarkable story.
"In the brief span of eight pages it conjures up the progress of a distinctive human soul through grief and desire and moral confusion to a self-awakening that fairly takes the breath away with its felt, material truth." Honey is included in Taking Pictures, a collection blurbed as being "snapshots of the body in trouble, in denial, in extremis, in love".
Man Booker week remains the zeitgeist week in the literary calendar, with two other talking points emanating from London's Guildhall ceremony on Tuesday: the news that prize organisers are in negotiations about placing shortlisted novels online for free downloading, and that this year's Booker jury chairman launched such a robust attack on aspects of book reviewing.
Arguing for more diversity in the sort of people who review novels, Sir Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics, felt novelists reviewing books by well-known writers often praised too much. He wants more distance and critical scepticism - and a greater readiness to notice new names.
Too many critics shy away from real criticism, he feels: "The only way you can detect that the reviewer doesn't like the book is when they spend the whole time simply describing the plot. They're not brave enough to say 'it doesn't work'." Food for a great debate.
Deserving debuts indeed
The Glen Dimplex New Writers Awards are for writers still at the starting block. Offered in association with the Irish Writers' Centre for the best debut book across five categories, the shortlists for this year are announced this weekend.
In biography/non-fiction, the shortlist is: Black Diamonds: The Rise and Fall of an English Dynasty by Catherine Bailey (Penguin/Viking); China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power by Rob Gifford (Bloomsbury); The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left by Ed Husain (Penguin/Viking); Nobody Told Us We Are Defeated: Stories from the New Iraq by Rory McCarthy (Chatto & Windus); Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe by William Rosen (Jonathan Cape); and Donne: The Reformed Soul by John Stubbs (Penguin).
Irish writer Kevin Barry who last week won the Rooney Prize, features on the fiction shortlist with his short story collection There Are Little Kingdoms (Stinging Fly). The others are According to Ruth by Jane Feaver (Harvill Secker); Gifted by Nikita Lalwani (Penguin/Viking); In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar (Penguin/Viking); Fresh by Mark McNay (Canongate); and The House of Subadar by Vijay Medtia (Arcadia).
The poetry shortlist is: Kink and Particle by Tiffany Atkinson (Seren); The Best Man that Ever Was by Annie Freud (Pan Macmillan); Reading the Dog by Maria McManus (Lagan); Look, We Have Coming to Dover! by Daljit Nagra (Faber); Preparing for Spring by Nell Regan (Arlen House); and Straight Ahead by Clare Shaw (Bloodaxe).
The children's literature list is: Waves by Sharon Dogar (Chicken House); Into the Woods by Lyn Gardner (Random House); After the Death of Alice Bennett by Rowland Molony (Oxford University Press); The Door of No Return by Sarah Mussi (Hodder Children's Books); You're a Bad Man, Mr Gum! by Andy Stanton (Egmont); and Finding Violet Park by Jenny Valentine (Harper Collins Children's Books).
Finally, on the Irish-language list are: Rian mo Chos ar Ghaineamh an tSaoil by Tony Bromell (Cló Iar-Chonnachta); An Bóthar go Santiago by Mícheál De Barra (Cois Life); Sin Iad na Rudaí by Máirín Ní Laoithe Uí Shé (Coiscéim); Bibeanna: Memories from a Corner of Ireland by Brenda Ní Shúilleabháin (Mercier); Bás is Beatha ar an Bhóthar Chreagach by Gabhán Ó Fachtna (Coiscéim); and Seán Ruiséal agus Iníon an Oileáin by Seán O'Connor (Coiscéim).
The winners will be announced on November 26th , and each category winner will receive €5,000. An overall winner for 2007 will be chosen from the five category winners, and will be awarded a further €20,000. www.newwritersawards.ie