In this Saturday’s Irish Times, John Boyne discusses his sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas with Derek Scally; retired judge Gillian Hussey talks to Jennifer O’Connell about her memoir, Lessons from the Bench; former IRA gunrunner John Crawley discusses his memoir, The Yank, with Simon Carswell; there is an extract from Taoisigh and the Arts by Kevin Rafter; plus a Q&A with Michael Longley.
Reviews are Maureen Gaffney on Mother Brain by Chelsea Conaboy; Seamus Martin on The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes and Russia: Myths and Realities by Rodric Braithwaite; Claire Hennessy on the best new YA fiction; Paschal Donohoe on The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest by Edward Chancellor; Niamh Donnelly on Instant Fires by Andrew Meehan; Lucy Sweeney Byrne on Holy Woman by Louise Omer; Paul Clements on In Our Day by Kevin C Kearns; Sara Baume on Pacemaker by David Toms; Sally Hayden on Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval by Gaia Vince; and Sarah Gilmartin on The Unfolding by AM Homes.
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The winner of the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award 2022 is Tipperary poet Eleanor Hooker, who has been lauded as a “poet with a unique voice that refuses to apologise”. Her winning collection, Of Ochre and Ash (Dedalus Press 2021) was described as “compelling” and “memorable” by this year’s judges, poets Kerry Hardie and Peter Sirr.
“Many excellent books were submitted for the Michael Hartnett Annual Poetry Award this year, but we both kept circling back to Eleanor Hooker’s third collection, Of Ochre and Ash,” the judges said, announcing the winner. “Family, place and memory are among her concerns, but it’s the imaginative brio, admirable adventurousness, and a real way with language, image, metaphor and form that make this a compelling collection. She is a poet with a unique voice that refuses to apologise.”
Hooker said: “It’s difficult to articulate just how much this means to me, how validating it is that these two great poets and writers have chosen my work for this incredibly prestigious award. It’s a tremendous honour.”
The poet will be presented with the award on the opening night of Éigse Michael Hartnett which takes place in Newcastle West, Co Limerick from October 6th to 9th. This year the value of the award has doubled to €8,000 and is supported by the Arts Council and by Limerick City and County Council.
Hooker said: “Michael Hartnett faced down his fears and made of them poems of exquisite lyrical elegance. He wrote with courage of his most dark and raw moments, without artifice or pretence. The desire for such authenticity and truthfulness has inspired much of my own writing. Michael Hartnett died too young, but to continue to read his poems is to remember that ‘eras do not end when great poets die/for poetry is not whole’.
Born in south Tipperary, Hooker initially trained as a nurse and midwife. She lived for several years in Britain and holds an MA (Hons) from the University of Northumbria. She also has an MA in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin and is studying for a PhD. She lives in Dromineer, Co Tipperary with her husband Peter. They have two sons. She is a founder member of the Dromineer Nenagh Literary Festival and is helm of the Lough Derg RNLI lifeboat.
The programme for this year’s Éigse Michael Hartnett Literary and Arts Festival includes The Hit Machine Drummers and Lantern Parade, Gerry Stembridge, Kerry Hardie, Peter Sirr, Mary Costello, Catríona Crowe, Mark Patrick Hederman, Peter Browne and Gabriel Fitzmaurice as well as local writers Keith McCoy and Tom Moloney. A fourth day has been added to this year’s festival, intended as a family and community oriented fun day. eigsemichaelhartnett.ie
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Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These is not the only Irish interest on this year’s Booker Prize shortlist. Bridge Books book club, formed by customers of the small bookshop in Dromore, Co Down, is one of six book clubs chosen from more than 100 to read and discuss one of the shortlisted books, in its case Treacle Walker by Alan Garner. Keegan’s novel will be read by Scunthorpe Pageturners in Lincolnshire. Two members of the club that shares the most original and engaging reviews will be invited to attend this year’s Booker Prize winner ceremony on October 17th at the Roundhouse in London, a fully in-person event for the first time since 2019.
Bridge Books has been serving its loyal local customers for over 25 years. While its book club has only been going for six months, it is already 14 members strong and boasts a broad mix of readers who are looking to discover something new. Their favourite book so far has been The Island of Missing Trees by Booker-shortlisted Elif Shafak. As the little shop is bursting at the seams with books, the club meets in a local bar each month.
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The shortlist for the £25,000 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding 2022 has been announced. This year’s truly international shortlist introduces readers to six exceptional, meticulously researched books on a wide range of topics: from the lives of villagers in a remote Swedish community, to life in the ruins of a recovering post-war Germany; the Chinese language and its adaptation to an outside world dominated by alphabetic thinking; the stories of four women who have killed, as seen over a century in Chile; a radical retelling of the history of science; and a revelatory biography of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone and of controversial methods that would enable deaf people to speak rather than sign. The winner will be revealed on October 26th.
The six books are: The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell’s Quest to End Deafness by Katie Booth; Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich by Harald Jähner, translated by Shaun Whiteside; Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village by Marit Kapla, translated by Peter Graves; Horizons: A Global History of Science by James Poskett; When Women Kill: Four Crimes Retold by Alia Trabucco Zerán, translated by Sophie Hughes; and Kingdom of Characters: A Tale of Language, Obsession and Genius in Modern China by Jing Tsu.
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Nine books have been shortlisted for the 2022 Butler Literary Award, which is given for what the judges deem the best first publication by an Irish writer in any literary form, or a first publication in a new form by an already published writer, in the period between August 2020 and June 2022.
The titles are Ana Maria Crowe Serrano’s In the Dark; Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times; Olivia Fitzsimons’ The Quiet Whispers Never Stop; Victoria Kennefick’s Eat Or We Both Starve; Roisin Kiberd’s The Disconnect; John Patrick McHugh’s Pure Gold; Kerri Ní Dochartaigh’s Thin Places; Megan Nolan’s Acts of Desperation; and Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe’s Auguries of a Minor God.
This year’s judges are Wendy Erskine, short story writer; Eibhear Walshe, novelist, critic, and director of Creative writing, University College Cork; and Helen Meany, journalist and arts consultant, chaired by Catherine Marshall, curator and art historian, and member of the Board of Directors of the Irish American Cultural Institute.
The judges said that they were struck by the wealth of talent among emerging writers in Ireland at present, writing in all forms, from essays to memoirs, poetry, novels, and the short story. “The calibre of writing was so high that we decided to have an expanded shortlist this year. We think that this list showcases the originality, literary playfulness, depth, and verve that made the selection process a pleasure.”
The Butler Literary Award, now worth $2,000, was initiated in 1962 by Patrick and Aimee Butler of St Paul, Minnesota, and continued until 2002. In 2018 the IACI revived the award and changed its focus to emerging literary writers in Ireland. It is offered every two years. The winner will be announced, in tandem with the biannual O’Malley Visual Art Award, at a reception at the University of Limerick (home of the O’Malley Art Collection) on September 28th.
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As a gesture of solidarity with Salman Rushdie, a short reading from The Satanic Verses will be held in protest against censorship by death threats and violence on Thursday, September 15th, at 7pm, outside the National Library, Kildare Street, Dublin. This is a joint initiative of Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann and the International Dublin Writers’ Festival, which opens the next day in Dublin and runs from September 16th-18th. Writers are invited to attend. Contact the organisers at lob@yourasms.com
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The Society of Authors and English PEN will be hosting an evening with Antonia Fraser at The British Library on September 21st, in celebration of her 90th birthday. Antonia Fraser will appear in conversation with Claire Armitstead to discuss her life and work.
