Michael Magee and Colin Walsh shortlisted for Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize

In The Irish Times this Saturday, Kate Mosse, author and founder of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, talks to Alex Clark about her latest historical fiction and there is a Q&A with Patrick deWitt about his new novel, The Librarianist.

Reviews are Kevin Power on Retroland: A Reader’s Guide to the Dazzling Diversity of Modern Fiction by Peter Kemp; Matthew O’Toole on Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America by Abraham Riesman; Neil Hegarty on Sanderson’s Isle by James Clarke; Rónán Hession on the best new translations; Houman Barekat on The Hour after Happy Hour by Mary O’Donoghue; Martina Evans on Up Late by Nick Laird; Edel Coffey on OK Days by Jenny Mustard; Helen Cullen on Pet by Catherine Chidgey; Rabeea Saleem on The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi; Mia Levitin on Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan; Lucy Sweeney Byrne on I, Julian by Claire Gilbert; Rory Kiberd on The Black Eden by Richard T Kelly; Declan Burke on The Silent City by Sarah Davis Goff; and Sarah Gilmartin on After the Funeral Tessa Hadley.

This weekend’s Irish Times Eason offer is All The Broken Places by John Boyne. You can buy a copy with your newspaper for just €5.99, a €5 saving.

Michael Magee and Colin Walsh have made the six-strong shortlist for this year’s Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. Belfast writer Magee has been recognised for Close to Home and Belgium-based Galway author Colin Walsh for Kala.

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This year’s shortlist also includes: In Memoriam by Alice Winn, a luminous, historical love story between two WWI soldiers; Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s highly original near-future dystopia Chain-Gang All-Stars; Jacqueline Crooks’ 70s and 80s set Fire Rush, a story about love, freedom, raving and police violence; and Wandering Souls, Cecile Pin’s beautiful and devastating story of immigration to Thatcher’s Britain.

Walsh has won several awards for his writing including the RTE Francis MacManus Short Story Prize, the Hennessy Literary Award and in 2019 he was named Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year. His writing has been published in the Stinging Fly, the Irish Times and broadcast on RTE Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4. Kala is a coming-of-age story and a propulsive thriller set on the west coast of Ireland over two timelines. It’s the story of a group of friends who, reunited 20 years after the disappearance of their friend, are haunted by the mystery of what happened to her.

Magee is the fiction editor of The Tangerine and a graduate of Liverpool John Moores as well as the PhD Creative Writing programme at Queen’s University, Belfast. Close to Home is a stunning portrait of modern masculinity, working class youth, and trauma, told with boundless intelligence and heart, which is at once a pitch-perfect study of place and a universally relatable exploration of what it’s like to be young, broke, and adrift.

Poetry Ireland’s ‘Ireland Is’ tour of spoken word and live music performances will travel to five locations across Ireland between 27th September – 1st October 2023, and feature a line-up of acclaimed poets, including Colm Keegan, Felispeaks, Hollie McNish, Danez Smith, and Erin Fornoff, as well as guest performances by musicians JyellowL (Dublin), Strange Boy (Limerick), Olympio (Cork), Síomha (Galway) and SOAK (Longford). The artists will shine a light on the Ireland of today and explore themes of identity and social justice, including issues of race, gender, body image, relationships, feminism, equality, love, resilience, and more. To find out more, visit poetryireland.ie

Castlebar-based poet Isabela Basombrío Hoban has won The New Athenaeum Online (The Nuevo Ateneo Online) literary award in Madrid. The award recognises the work of authors who have written work of great literary value and who strive to contribute to new forms of cultural diffusion to reach the reading public.

Basombrío Hoban was presented with the award at the Ediciones Vitruvio Poetry Festival last week after launching her latest bilingual book, Rain Love Death Poets (Ediciones Vitruvio).

Basombrío Hoban is a bilingual poet, writing in both English and Spanish. She is originally from Peru and lives in Castlebar, Co Mayo. The poet acknowledges the support of Mayo County Council Arts Section and Culture Ireland.

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The Royal Society of Literature (RSL), the charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, announced 62 new appointments this week, including Jan Carson, Emma Dabiri, Seán Hewitt, Wendy Erskine, Peggy Hughes, Kaite O’Reilly and Glenn Patterson.

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Gráinne Clear has been promoted to editorial director for fiction at Walker Books UK. Clear, Walker Books’ new editorial director for fiction, has worked with and acquired many leading names since joining Walker Books in 2019: the Gifts series by Caroline O’Donoghue; Nura and the Immortal Palace by M T Khan (winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Younger Readers); and Rebel Skies by Ann Sei Lin, which was shortlisted for the Branford Boase. She has also helped set up the Staróg Prize for new children’s writers in Ireland.

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Cacophony of Bone by Kerri ní Dochartaigh (Canongate) has made the 2023 James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing longlist. Billy Conker’s Nature-Spotting Adventure by Conor Busuttil (O’Brien) and A Wild Child’s Book of Birds by Dara McAnulty (Macmillan) are on the 2023 James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Children’s Writing on Nature and Conservation longlist. Shortlists will be announced on August 10th, and the winners will be announced live on September 14th.

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Elena Browne, a sales representative with The O’Brien Press, has been named this week as one of The Bookseller’s annual Rising Stars.

Browne always wanted to work in books, but when she was 21 she was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. After she learned to manage the illness, she moved to San Francisco to train as a chronic disease self-management leader before returning home to study English at Trinity, followed by an MPhil in children’s literature. She entered the trade at Eason’s O’Connell Street flagship as a YA and kids’ specialist, before moving to The O’Brien Press in 2016. “Sales and marketing called to me: what could be better than making a living raving about books to people who love books?”

While sales is her main remit, the role has evolved to encompass commissioning, including craft influencer Catherine Carton’s bestselling Dainty Dress Diaries and A Limerick Fairytale by O’Mahony’s children’s buyer Gráinne O’Brien. Browne hopes to continue her own writing too; her second picture book, You Can Do It, Rosie! (illustrated by Brian Fitzgerald) was released last autumn.

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The judges for the International Booker Prize 2024 have been revealed today. The panel is chaired by writer and broadcaster Eleanor Wachtel and includes award-winning poet Natalie Diaz; Booker Prize-shortlisted novelist Romesh Gunesekera; ground-breaking visual artist William Kentridge; and acclaimed writer, editor and translator Aaron Robertson. The 2024 judging panel will be looking for the best work of fiction translated into English, selected from entries published in the UK or Ireland between May 1, 2023 and April 30, 2024.