Books newsletter: Victoria Adukwei Bulley wins 2023 Pollard International Poetry Prize

In this Saturday’s Irish Times, Annie Macmanus talks to Róisín Ingle about her second novel, The Mess We’re In; Jackie Uí Chionna, author of Queen of Codes: the Secret Life of Emily Anderson, Britain’s Greatest Female Codebreaker, talks to Rosita Boland; and there is a Q&A with Rathbones Folio Prize winner Margo Jefferson.

Reviews are Michael Cronin on Teasáras | Thesaurus - Irish-English by Garry Bannister; Paschal Donohoe on How Economics Can Save the World by Erik Angner and My Journeys in Economic Theory by Edmund Phelps; John Self on Service by Sarah Gilmartin; Neil Hegarty on Cacophony of Bone by Kerri ní Dochartaigh; Edel Coffey on The Island of Longing by Anne Griffin; Sean Duke on Sleeping Beauties by Andreas Wagner; Séamas O’Reilly on the best new comic books; Kathleen McNamee on The Grass Ceiling by Eimear Ryan; Sarah Gilmartin on Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy; and Claire Hennessy on the best new YA fiction.

This Saturday’s Irish Times Eason offer is Trespasses by Louise Kennedy, the Irish Novel of the Year which was recently shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and topped the British paperback fiction bestseller list. You can buy it with your paper for just €4.99, a €5 saving.

Victoria Adukwei Bulley wins 2023 Pollard International Poetry Prize

Victoria Adukwei Bulley has been announced as the winner of the 2023 John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize for her debut book Quiet at an award ceremony in Trinity College Dublin last night.

Her debut poetry collection, Quiet, explores ideas of black interiority, intimacy and selfhood. It was previously shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. A poet, writer and artist, Victoria is a doctoral student at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Chair of the judging panel, Prof Eoin McNamee, Director of the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre, said: “These poems call out in the quiet, the personal and the political fused, the poet falling through the self and plucking from the air bright marvels, lost and stolen language, defiance, lamentation and beauty.”

This is the fifth year of the prize, which is awarded annually for an outstanding debut collection of poetry in the English language. Valued at €10,000, the prize is sponsored by the John Pollard Foundation and administered by the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre in the School of English at Trinity.

Adukwei Bulley said: “I’m unspeakably honoured that Quiet has been named the 2023 winner of the John Pollard International Poetry Prize. Quiet is a book that thinks about Black interior life but it also considers what it means to gather, to move collectively in steadfast hopeful action across time, across space, through the dark as well as the light. I exist within an ecosystem of makers, thinkers, scholars, and enthusiasts who have in so many ways supported me across the years. Without these people and their brilliance, writing would be a very lonely pursuit.

‘It takes a village to bring a book into the world and I am in deep gratitude to the individuals who have held this work and myself with such love. I want to name and say thank Kevin Quashie, for his remarkable, tender work, The Sovereignty of Quiet, and too, the brilliant Lynnee Denise for bringing me to it. I want to thank Emma Patterson and Monica MacSwan at Aitken Alexander. Thank you to Lavinia Singer and Matthew Hollis for taking such good care of me at Faber and Faber, to Matthew for seeing even what I could not see in my own words, and to John Freeman at Knopf for being so generous a champion, for so lovingly giving this book new wings and allowing it to fly even further overseas. It is my sheer good fortune to know and work with each of you.

“You never knew what might happen once a book leaves your hands, you simply hope that it will do good work in the world, and that it might find its people – whoever they are. I want to close, then, by extending my heartfelt thanks to the judges, Eoin McNamee, Phillip Coleman, Vona Groarke and Alice Lyons for their time with this book. I would also like to thank Stephen Vernon, patron of the prize and for whose grandfather it is named, and Linda Doyle, Provost of Trinity College Dublin, for making this award possible. For all the encouragement this offers, for all the ways that this says keep going, keep writing, truly, thank you.”

Benefactor Stephen Vernon, congratulated the winner: “It is a great thrill to have Victoria Adukwei Bulley as the winner of this year’s John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize. Victoria’s poems are compelling and her voice is unique. I am delighted to add Victoria’s name to our growing list of talented prize-winning poets.”

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The Windham-Campbell Prizes has launched its first podcast to celebrate the 2023 recipients of the major global award that celebrates the literary achievements of both well established and new writers across fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama.

The first episode features Darran Anderson, winner of the Prize for Non-Fiction - he discusses Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and how it inspired his own work Imaginary Cities. The other recipients of this year’s Prize, including Percival Everett, Dominique Morisseau and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, will guest in episodes released every two weeks.