Dramatist Nancy Harris has been selected as the winner of the 2012 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature.
Harris, who premiered her play Our New Girl at the Bush Theatre London earlier this year, follows in the footsteps of writers such as Neil Jordan, Kevin Barry, Frank McGuinness, Deirdre Madden and Anne Enright in winning the award.
Her earlier works include No Romance, Little Dolls and an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata.
No Romance, which was commissioned by the Abbey Theatre and received its world premiere at the Peacock in March of last year, won Harris the new playwright bursary at the 2012 Stewart Parker Trust Awards.
The Rooney Prize, presented annually to a promising Irish writer, is administered by the Oscar Wilde Centre in Trinity College Dublin. The prize was created in 1976 by the current US ambassador to Ireland Dan Rooney and his wife, Patricia.
Terence Brown, chair of the Rooney Prize committee, said that Harris had demonstrated "psychological insight" and "sharp wit" in her work which had impressed both audiences and critics.
Harris is the daughter of Sunday Independent editor Anne Harris and columnist Eoghan Harris.