Mary O’Donnell: ‘I’d happily sign off on a 10% Leaving Cert bonus for English, music and art’
A desire to ‘rip into a subject that has sat like a succubus on me’ inspired writer’s first novel since 2014
Author Emma Donoghue: ‘I grew up very normal, yet had this secret side that I thought everyone would consider foul’
The writer on literary reputation, emigration and ‘the crushing weight of being the only gay in the village’
Strokestown poetry prize shortlist revealed
Books newsletter: a wrap of the latest news and preview of tomorrow’s pages
Dublin Literary Award 2026 shortlist: ‘Literature at its most international, most ambitious, and most humane’
Award-winning Scottish author Ali Smith, Vietnamese American writer Ocean Vuong and a Croatian debutant feature on a list with a strong French accent
Author Susannah Dickey: ‘With each book I find myself more invested in writing Ireland’
In the author’s Donegal-set third novel Into the Wreck the vessel of the title ‘represents in some ways the plethora of suppressed histories harboured by families’ across the island
Author Jan Carson: ‘I Googled what would happen if you drained Lough Neagh’
Author’s fourth novel, Few and Far Between, is inspired by a politician’s madcap scheme
Pigott Poetry Prize shortlist announced
Books newsletter: a wrap of the latest news and preview of Saturday’s pages
International Booker Prize 2026 shortlist: women dominate list that ‘reverberates with history’
Novels transport readers from 1930s Japan-ruled Taiwan to Nazi-controlled Europe, from magic and domesticity in 1990s France to the Iranian Revolution in 1979
Sheila O’Flanagan: Losing family members makes you aware of how fragile our connections are
Ahead of her latest release Secrets Between Friends, author talks about loss, the challenges facing female writers and snobbery in the industry
Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride win Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize
Books newsletter: a wrap of the latest news and preview of tomorrow’s pages
Neil Tully’s The Visit: ‘I wrote the sort of novel I like to read – a small town, a sense of trouble lurking’
The first-time novelist talks inspiration, the influence of JFK on Ireland, and troubled outcasts
Seán Hewitt on Dylan Thomas Prize shortlist
Books newsletter: a wrap of the latest news and preview of tomorrow’s pages
Anna Burns: ‘When I got damaged in surgery, nothing else mattered. I’ve always lived in survival mode’
The Booker Prize-winning author on writing through the pain, growing up in Belfast’s Murder Triangle and getting sober after leaving the ‘boozy’ city for London
Sarah Crossan: ‘Meeting amazing teenagers was a highlight of being Laureate na nÓg’
Author’s new novel Gone for Good is one of three verse thrillers and is based in the Adirondack mountains
Cúirt festival line-up revealed
Books newsletter: a wrap of the latest news and preview of tomorrow’s pages