The six authors in the mix for Frank O’Connor award

Six books are in contention for this week’s 2015 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award 2015.

They are Refund by Karen E Bender (Counterpoint Press); The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies (Salt Publishing); Mr Tall by Tony Earley (Little Brown); Infidelities by Kirsty Gunn (Faber); Crow Fair by Thomas McGuane (Knopf); and My Documents by Alejandro Zambra (Fitzcarraldo Press).

Previous winners of the €25,000 prize, the single most lucrative in the world for a short-story collection, include Edna O'Brien, Haruki Murakami, Ron Rash and Yiyun Li. Last year's winner was the Irish author Colin Barrett for his collection Young Skins. "The Frank O'Connor Award is an internationally esteemed prize, the shortlist for which all short story writers surely dream of one day making. To have done so, and then actually won the thing, meant an astonishing amount to me," Barrett said.

This year’s shortlisted authors hail from North Carolina (Karen E Bender), Wales (Carys Davies), Nashville (Tony Earley), New Zealand (Kirsty Gunn), Montana (Thomas McGuane) and Chile (Alejandro Zambra).

The name of the winning collection will be announced on Wednesday July 8th, and the award itself will be presented to the successful writer at the closing of the Cork International Short Story Festival in September.