The Booker did it for the first time this year, but the International Impac Dublin Literary Prize has been issuing longlists for ages.
The one for 2002 was announced in Dublin on Monday. Once upon a less media-driven time, the Booker Prize simply announced a shortlist and then a winner. The more coverage can be squeezed out of a prize, the more announcements it will come up with, to the point, so it seems to Sadbh, that hardly a month goes by without press releases arriving heralding longlists, names of judges, shortlists, dinners, readings and presentations for various awards, before the whole circus starts up again.
Believe it or not, it's IMPAC time again, with a staggering 123 titles on the longlist. It will be a full four-and-a-half months before the shortlist is announced and, thereafter, another two months before the winner is known. Is that a prize spinning itself into calendar infinity or is it not? Bah, humbug!
Anyway, four Irish writers are on the IMPAC longlist this year, selected from nominations received from more than 100 municipal libraries in 34 countries. The Irish quartet are: Mary Morrissy for The Pretender; Michael Collins for The Keepers of Truth; Joe O'Connor for Inishowen; and John Banville for Eclipse. Among the other titles nominated are The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi; True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey; The Years with Laura Diaz by Carlos Fuentes; The Flight of the Maidens by Jane Gardam; Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris; When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro; Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje; The Human Stain by Philip Roth; and White Teeth by Zadie Smith.
The judges whose task it is to read all 123 novels are: Irish writer Jennifer Johnston; English biographer Michael Holroyd; Icelandic writer Steinunn Sigurdardottir; Canadian writer Audrey Thomas; Mexican writer George Volpi; and historian Allen Weinstein, who is the non-voting chairman of the panel. Now then! The prize money on offer this time round is a lot less than in previous years. Prior to the introduction of the euro, the prize was £100,000, but the 2002 prize will be €100,000. As anyone who has had a Government-issued euro conversion calculator dropped through their letterbox lately will know, this represents a significant drop. Is this the first high-profile instance of established prizes being worth significantly less in the new money?
The Patrick Kavanagh Weekend takes place this weekend in Inniskeen, Co Monaghan. This year's theme is "Whitethorn Hedge", a reference to one of Kavanagh's poems.
Antoinette Quinn, whose biography of the poet was so favourably reviewed on these pages last Saturday, is among the participants. Quinn, a fellow emeritus at TCD, is from Co Monaghan, and would have grown up with an understanding of the stony grey soil with which Kavanagh had such a powerful love-hate relationship all his life.
Today, Sam McAughtry is storytelling, while Joseph Woods, director of Poetry Ireland, who won the Kavanagh Poetry Award last year, is due to speak on "The Decline of the Rural Poem". Journalist John Waters gives a lecture tomorrow on "Patrick Kavanagh and the Irish Thing". This year's prize will be awarded tomorrow afternoon. More information from 042-9378560.
Still on prizes, the winners of the Seacat Irish National Poetry Competition were announced this week at a ceremony in Dublin Castle, with the President, Mrs McAleese, presenting the prizes. The £5,000 overall winner in the adults section was Noel Monaghan, for his poem, 'The Funeral Game'.
Leanne O'Sullivan (18), of Beara Community School, Co Cork, won £500 in the secondary school section for her poem, 'Crescendo'. Aidan Breen (9), of St Mary's Primary School, Tempo, Co Fermanagh, won a cool £250 for his poem, 'My Gran', in the primary school section. Sadbh wonders if Aidan's grandmother will get something special for Christmas this year, since his piggybank is now admirably full. This is Aidan's poem:
My gran is as old as Brogher Mountain
As creased as my unmade bed.
She's as bent as the handlebars on my bike.
My gran is so small and quiet.
She's as small as a biscuit tin.
She's got a thin voice.
She sounds like the wind rattling through
the sheds.
My gran is like a pizza on a Sunday
evening.
She is a real treat.