The shortlist for the inaugural Irish Book Awardswas announced today with literary heavyweights John Banville and John McGahern featuring prominently in the fiction and non-fiction categories respectively.
In the fiction category John Banville's Man Booker prize winning novel The Seawill be the frontrunner
Also featured are Nick Laird's Utterly Monkey, Mike McCormack's Notes from a Coma,poet Brian Lynch's The Winner of Sorrow,William Wall's This is the Countryand Lia William's Nothing Simple.
Competition in the non-fiction category is intense with John McGahern's Memoirup against Fintan O'Toole's White Savageand David McWilliams's The Pope's Children.Also shortlisted are Brian Dillon's In the Dark Room, Donal Nevin's James Connollyand All of those People' by Fergal Keane.
Finally, the children's category features Whitbread winner Kate Thompson's The New PolicemanDeirdre Maddens' Snakes Elbows, Malachy Doyle's Dancing Tigeralongside John Quinn's Bill and Fredand Sam Mc Bratney's Up the Wooden Hill.
The awards were launched this morning by Hughes & Hughes to "honour Irish writing and thank the increasing number of Irish authors who give us so much joy through their books each year."
The total prize fund for the awards is €20,000 with the ceremony taking place in March this year.