Irish writer on debut novel hot list

Irish writer Kevin Barry has been included on a list of 11 debut authors who are expected to wow the literary world this year.

Barry, whose work has previously been descried as "hilarious and unpredictable" by fellow novelist Roddy Doyle, has been named as part of the 'Waterstone's 11' for his forthcoming book City of Bohane.

Waterstone's 11 is a new initiative created to uncover and champion the very best in debut fiction.

The authors were chosen from nearly 100 submissions and are expected to go on to achieve both critical and commercial success for their work.

Barry, who was born in Limerick in 1969 has been publishing stories which have appeared widely in newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic.

The author made his New Yorker debut with the short story Fjord of Killary last year while his debut collection of short stories, There Are Little Kingdoms , won the Rooney Prize in 2007. He has written extensively about literature and travel for a large number of publications including The Irish Times, The Dublin Review and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Barry also works as a screenwriter and playwright and his feature script Memorabilia is in development with the Irish Film Board. City of Bohane is to be published by Cape in April.

Other authors included on Waterstone's 11 are the former literary editor of the Daily Telegraph Sam Leith for his book The Coincidence Engine, actress Sarah Winman for When God was a Rabbit and Stephen Kelman who made the news last year when his novel Pigeon English was at the centre of a 12-way bidding war.

The full list of the Waterstone's 11 is as follows:

City of Bohane by Kevin Barry (Jonathan Cape)

The Free World by David Bezmozgis (Viking)

The Registrar's Manual for Detecting Forced Marriages by Sophie Hardach (Simon & Schuster)

22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson (Fig Tree)

Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka (Jonathan Cape)

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman (Bloomsbury)

The Coincidence Engine by Sam Leith (Bloomsbury)

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht (Orion)

The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud (William Heinemann)

The Collaborator by Mirza Waheed (Viking)

When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman (Headline)