Book deals and prize success for Irish authors

In tomorrow’s Irish Times, Sara Baume discusses her new novel, Seven Steeples; Amy Bloom discusses her husband’s assisted suicide; and Kim Gordon and Sinéad Gleeson talk about their collection of essays about women and music.

Reviews are Catherine Taylor on the best contemporary Ukrainian fiction; Mia Levitin on The Geometer Lobachevsky by Adrian Duncan; Declan Burke on the best crime fiction; Christiana Spens on Wet Paint by Chloe Ashby and Tom de Freston’s Wreck: The Art of Being Lost at Sea; Ray Snoddy on Reporting the Troubles 2; Tony Clayton-Lea on the best new music books; Laura Kennedy on When the Dust Settles: Stories of Love, Loss and Hope From an Expert in Disaster by Lucy Easthope; Catherine Conroy on Ten Steps to Nanette by Hannah Gadsby; Barry Pierce on Paradais by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes; and Sarah Gilmartin on Seven Steeples by Sara Baume.

This Saturday’s Irish Times Eason book offer is Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. You can buy the Nobel Prize winner’s atest nbovel for just €4.99, a €6 saving, at any branch with your paper.

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Ten Steps to Nanette by Hannah Gadsby: A serious book about comedy

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When the Dust Settles: Astonishing account of the elements of disaster we do not see

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Seven Steeples by Sara Baume: Quitting society and leaving no trace

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Auguries of a Minor God, the debut poetry collection by Dublin-based writer Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, has been shortlisted for one of the world’s largest literary prizes for young writers, the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize.

From Sri Lanka to Trinidad, Texas, and Ireland via the Middle East, this year’s shortlist features a powerful, international collection of writers who are offering platforms for under-represented voices. Comprising four novels, one poetry collection, and one short story collection, the shortlist also includes three debuts.

Also shortlisted are A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam (Sri Lanka); The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris (American; No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood (American); Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson (British-Ghanaian); and Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor (American)

Auguries of a Minor God follows two different journeys, the first of love and the wounds it makes and the second following a family of refugees who have fled to the West from conflict in an unspecified Middle Eastern country. “One feels, reading Eipe’s collection, a shift in poetry, a cracking open of new possibilities,” wrote Seán Hewitt in his Irish Times review. “Heralding the arrival of an assured and compassionate new voice, Auguries of a Minor God is a book in two parts: the first consists of shorter lyrics, each meticulously attuned to the page, and the second to an extraordinary and expansive long poem, A is for Arabs, which combines an abecedarian structure with the logic of the Fibonacci sequence.”

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American Mules by Martina Evans, Howdy Skelp by Paul Muldoon and Shoulder Tap by Maurice Riordan have been shortlisted for the 2022 Pigott Poetry Prize. Now in its 9th year, it is Ireland’s largest monetary prize for a poetry collection by an Irish poet, with the winner being awarded €12,000, and the two shortlisted finalists each receiving €1,000.

Over 50 poetry books were submitted for this year’s award and adjudicators Mark Waldron and Maura Dooley selected the shortlist of three on behalf of Listowel Writers’ Week.

Waldron said: “It was a privilege, a pleasure and an inspiration to read so much great poetry. You realise judging such a variety of work, just how many forms poetry excellence comes in. We would have loved to have picked ten winners but ultimately managed to find three that stood out for us both. All were books which stood up to multiple readings and lingered in the mind.”

The winner of the Pigott Poetry Prize will be announced on June 1st. The Pigott Poetry Prize is sponsored by Mark Pigott who said, “It is a blessing to be able to support this wonderful literary award and recognise the leading poets of Ireland. This is the 9th year of the prize and the competition is world class.”

A mammoth archive of over six hundred poems - most of them in video form - by 266 writers goes on line this week as the culmination of a literary project that ran throughout the big pandemic lockdown. The poets, performers who should have been reading in pubs and halls to live audiences, were asked to make videos of themselves reading a poem to comfort and entertain one another during the dark days and also to keep faith with the listeners who should have been in those pubs and halls hearing work being read. The model was Boccaccio's Decameron, where the characters while away a plague quarantine in a villa outside Florence by telling each other stories to keep their spirits up. The project was managed by the Facebook group The Perp Walk, which ordinarily acts as a notice board for literary events and is now archived here.

Colin Walsh, who was named Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year in 2019 for a story first published in The Irish Times, has signed a two-book deal with Atlantic. Its publishing director James Roxburgh bought rights to Walsh’s debut novel Kala at a five-way auction from his agent Lucy Luck.

Walsh’s short stories have won several awards including the RTE Francis MacManus Short Story Prize and the Hennessy Literary Award. In 2019 he was named Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year. His writing has been published in the Stinging Fly, the Irish Times and broadcast on RTE Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4. He is from Galway and lives in Belgium.

Roxburgh said: “Kala made me think of Mad and Furious City meets Mare of Easttown, brilliant on the glorious, woozy experience of being young and getting off with each other, of being fearless and full of big ideas, of the kind of friendships that feel everlasting and unbreakable – and then showing how those childhood friendships often retreat and fall apart, how adulthood brings with it all kinds of fears and narrow ideas, how getting off with each other has its inherent phantoms of jealousy and regret. And all of this orbiting a set-up of small-town secrets and bones found on a building site, the kind of perfect crime-noir storytelling that left the publicity director half in awe and half resentful of Colin because she’d entered into a death-pact with the book in which she couldn’t put it down till 3am. I think Colin Walsh is a major new voice in literary fiction and bringing him to the list with a two-book deal a major statement of ambition for Atlantic Fiction.”

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Elaine Feeney, prizewinning author of As You Were, has signed a major two-book deal with Harvill Secker. The first, How To Build a Boat, is out next summer.

Canelo Crime is to publish Breaking, a “gripping” crime thriller debut novel from Amanda Cassidy, this October. Cassidy is a freelance journalist, commissioning editor and former Sky News reporter. She has been shortlisted for the Irish Journalist of the Year Awards.

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The winners of The Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2022 were announced yesterday evening at a ceremony at Waterstones’ flagship bookshop on Piccadilly. Belfast-based author, Ciara Smyth was named winner of the Books for Older Readers category for her novel, Not My Problem. Ciara received a £2,000 prize and the promise of ongoing commitment to her writing career.

Ciara Smyth studied drama, teaching and then social work at university. She was born in the south of Ireland and has now been living in Belfast for over 10 years.

Not My Problem is a moving and hilarious high school story about a troubled rulebreaker who accidentally becomes the school’s problem-fixer and finds herself connecting with the most unexpected group of people.

Ciara says: “I love to write about people who have to overcome their defences to discover the richness and colour that relationships of all kinds bring to their lives. If I can manage to do that while making people laugh, even better!”

Joanna, of Waterstones Telford, described Not My Problem as both “heart-warming and heart-breaking”, whilst Rachel, of Waterstones Canterbury, said “Made me snort laugh in the staffroom, and the ending made me cry” and Kate, Waterstones Epsom, loves that “Aideen is so witty and snarky – I really fell in love with her character.”

A highlight of early summer for all readers and book lovers, the UL Creative Writing Festival returns from May 20th to 22nd, featuring a stellar line-up of international, award-winning writers: including Roddy Doyle, Kit deWaal, Kevin Barry, Lisa McInerney, Danielle McLaughlin, Donal Ryan, Joseph O’Connor, Louise Kennedy, Sebastian Barry, Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, poets Emily Cullen, Kayssie Kandiwa, Sean Hewitt, Rachael Hegarty, Jane Clarke and many more.

The Festival will include the launch of the 2022 edition of UL’s literary journal The Ogham Stone and readings from our unique “Creative Writers In The Community” module, led by Eoin Devereux. Poetry, prose, talks, writing tips, book signings.

All events takieplace in the beautiful Irish World Academy of Music & Dance building. Weekend tickets are €35 / Concessions €20 and include access to all events.

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Poetry Ireland is delighted to announce not one but three new guest editors of Poetry Ireland Review, who each take up editorship of an upcoming issue of the highly regarded poetry journal. The three guest editors are Colm Keegan, Gerald Dawe, and Nessa O’Mahony.

Poetry Ireland also welcomes Tapasya Narang who has been appointed guest editor of Trumpet, a literary pamphlet packed with reviews, essays, and strong opinions.

Colm Keegan, Gerald Dawe, and Nessa O’Mahony are now reviewing submissions for Poetry Ireland Review issues 136, 137 and 138 respectively. Tapasya Narang is commissioning poetry, prose, and artwork for Trumpet 11.

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The shortlist for the 2022 Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses has been announced: Dark Neighbourhood by Vanessa Onwuemezi (Fitzcarraldo Editions); Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu, trans. Tiffany Tsao (Tilted Axis Press); Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga, trans. Melanie Mauthner (Daunt Books); The Song of Youth by Montserrat Roig, trans. Tiago Miller (Fum D’Estampa Press); and Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner (Peninsula Press).

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Tish Delaney has been shortlisted for the the Authors’ Club ’s annual Best First Novel Award, worth £2,500 to the winner, for her debut novel, Before My Actual Heart Breaks (Hutchinson Heinemann). Set in rural Ireland during the Troubles, it is “a stunning evocation of a woman emotionally stunted by an abusive childhood and her affecting rites of passage”, the judges said.

Also shorltisted are Yvonne Bailey-Smith for The Day I Fell off My Island; AK Blakemore for The Manningtree Witches; Lucy Jago for A Net for Small Fishes; Catherine Menon for Fragile Monsters and Melody Razak for Moth.

Lucy Popescu, chair of the judging panel, commented: “These terrific debuts cover an array of subjects from war and migration, betrayal and persecution and the importance of family ties, belonging and hope. By exploring the past, they remind us of the various ways historical narratives help us navigate the world today. We are transported from the misogyny of 17th century England to the brutal conflict of 1970s Northern Ireland and visit 20th century Malaysia, India and Jamaica. Alex Wheatle will decide the overall winner.”

The winner will be announced at a dinner at the National Liberal Club on May 25th.

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Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You has been shorltisted for fiction of the year at the British Book Awards, along with Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss, The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr and Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff. The winner will be announced on May 23rd.

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The Prix des Ambassadeurs de la Francophonie 2022 has been presented to Maggie O’Farrell for the French edition of her book Hamnet. Published by Éditions Belfond and translated into French by Sarah Tardy, Hamnet was chosen for its beautiful writing and compelling story, which resonated strongly with the prize jury. Literature Ireland, in partnership with the Ambassadeurs de la Francophonie, celebrated the award at the Belgian Ambassador’s Residence in Dublin yesterday evening.

As part of the prize, Literature Ireland will host Sarah Tardy for a two-week residency in Ireland. The prize is a joint award, with a cash prize awarded to the author, Maggie O’Farrell, and a residential bursary for the translator, Sarah Tardy.

Literature Ireland has supported many editions of Hamnet, from the French translation to editions in Finnish, Portuguese, Catalan, Spanish, Estonian, Swedish, and Bulgarian.

The director of Literature Ireland, Sinéad Mac Aodha, said: “Hamnet is an exceptional book – a daring, delicate and evocative account of marriage, motherhood and grief set in Shakespeare’s family home place at the end of the 16th century. The world Maggie O’Farrell imagines for Hamnet and those around him is a compelling and immersive experience. Literature Ireland also congratulates the publisher Camille Dumat and translator Sarah Tardy who have so expertly brought this book to a French readership. Hamnet richly deserves this prize.”

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The Irish Writers Centre is taking on the stewardship of the National Mentoring Programme for literature after five successful years under Words Ireland management. The seven literature organisations in the Words Ireland collective agreed the centre was best suited to develop this initiative into the future.

Valiere Bistany, director of the IWC, said: “Mentorship, formal or informal, has allowed professional writers to hand on their craft and experience to the next generation. I believe it to be a highly effective intervention for a writer to grow in confidence and in their writing craft. The National Mentoring Programme has formalised that process, ensuring professional writers get paid for their work, and that new, emerging and early career writers learn from the best Irish writers today. NMP is a major initiative in the literary landscape and a real feather in the Irish Writers Centre’s cap. It chimes perfectly with our ongoing endeavours to connect writers with each other in communities across the island, and to pay professional writers adequately for their work. These ambitions are expressed as goals in our new five-year strategy, which is to be launched in April.”

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The non-fiction, memoir, poetry and journal publisher The Irish Pages Press / Cló An Mhíl Bhu is the Island of Ireland winner in the 2022 Small Press of the Year competition. Belfast-based but increasingly active in Scotland too, it excels in design and production and is an important champion of Celtic voices. Direct website sales increased during bookshop closures, and marketing and publicity give it a literary profile that belies its small size. It is now in contention for the overall Small Press of the Year Award, to be announced at the British Book Awards ceremony in London on May 23rd.