The collected poems of Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney and debut books by two Irish authors are among the winners of the 1999 Irish Times Literature Prizes.
The International Fiction Prize has been won by US writer Lorrie Moore for her short story collection, Birds of America.
This year, for the first time in the 10-year history of the prizes, a separate award for a work in the Irish language has been presented and the inaugural winner in this category is the writer and academic Mair in Nic Eoin, for B'Ait Leo Bean, a rewriting of the Irish literary tradition from the viewpoint of women.
The three winners of The Irish Times Irish Literature Prizes for poetry, fiction and non-fiction in the English language are: Seamus Heaney for Opened Ground; Antonia Logue for her first novel, Shadow-Box; and Neil Belton for The Good Listener: Helen Bamber: A Life Against Cruelty, also a first book.
The winner of the International Fiction Prize will receive £7,500, with £5,000 going to each of the four winning authors in the Irish Literature categories.
The President, Mrs McAleese, will present the winning authors with their prizes at a ceremony in Dublin on November 3rd.
The Irish Times Literature Prizes were first presented 10 years ago and past winners include Don DeLillo, A.S. Byatt, John McGahern, Colm Toibin, Professor J.J. Lee, Patrick McCabe, Derek Mahon, Ciaran Carson, E. Annie Proulx, Brian Keenan, J.M. Coetzee, Paddy Devlin, Robert Greacen, Paul Muldoon, Declan Kiberd and Seamus Deane.