One park, 10 days and a world of stories: the 29th International Literature Festival Dublin is offering book lovers an early insight into some exciting literary talents attending this year’s festival, in Merrion Square this May.
Colm Tóibín launches his new work, The News from Dublin: Stories; Richard Armitage also launches his new book, The Cut; Doireann Ní Ghríofa, award-winning author of A Ghost in the Throat, discusses her new book, Said the Dead, a polyphonic history of an institution that is both history and ghost story; Russian political activist and writer Maria Alyokhina, of anti-Putinist punk rock group Pussy Riot, will talk about her recently released memoir, Political Girl; and Tana French will discuss The Keeper, her third and final crime book in the million-copy bestselling Cal Hooper trilogy.
These talents are just a sample of the International Literature Festival Dublin 2026, which runs from May 15th to 24th. ilfdublin.com
*
In The Irish Times on Saturday, Jen Bray tells Nadine O’Regan about her debut thriller. Rosita Boland writes about the mobile library which services the remotest parts of west Cork. And there is a Q&A with Charleen Hurtubise about her new novel, Saoirse.
Reviews are Roe McDermott on A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot; Neasa MacErlean on Outsider by Paul Cullen; Paul D’Alton on Unspeakable by Dr Gwen Adshead & Eileen Horne; Declan Burke on the best new crime fiction; Daniel Geary on Hated by All the Right People by Jason Zengerle; Lucy Sweeney Byrne on Orange by Curtis Garner; Doug Battersby on Ian McGuire’s White River Crossing; Declan Burke on In Glass Houses by Edel Coffey; Adam Wyeth on New Green Fool by Alan Cunningham; Éilís Ní Dhuibhne on The Last of Earth by Deepa Anappara; Mei Chin on Female, Nude by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett; Val Nolan on The Irish Goodbye by Heather Aimee O’Neill; and Robert McNamara on New Labour, New Britain? How the Blair Governments Reshaped the Country by Glen O’Hara.
*
We would love to hear your feedback on this newsletter and get your reaction to some ideas. Please take a few minutes to fill in this survey.
*
The 42nd Limerick Literary Festival (formerly known as the Kate O’Brien Weekend) features a broad range of events that mark the city as a place of literary excellence. The festival opens with The Island of Imagination: A Literary Tour of Ireland (Friday, February 27th, 7pm, free), when the Laureate for Fiction, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, will be in conversation with the Limerick writer Sarah Gilmartin. Other events include David Park (Saturday, February 28th, 11.30am, €15.50), Muriel Barbery (Saturday, February 28th, 1.30pm, €15.50) and Miriam O’Callaghan in conversation with Alan English, associate editor of the Currency (Sunday, March 1st, 4pm, €22.50).
*
The Irish Writers Centre in Dublin’s Parnell Square has announced its Irish-language programme for 2026, which includes Seachtain na Gaeilge events, a new dedicated Irish-language mentoring initiative and workshops celebrating contemporary creativity through Irish.
Highlights include a bilingual Seachtain na Gaeilge showcase, Focail san Aer ag Cearnóg Parnell/Words in the Air on Parnell Square on March 12th, hosted by Ciara Ní É, featuring Aifric Mac Aodha, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Ben Mac Caoillte and Ola Majekodunmi; the launch of the centre’s first Irish-language mentoring strand, led by Aifric Mac Aodha; a spoken-word poetry workshop with All-Ireland Poetry Slam champion Cormac Mac Gearailt; and a one-day workshop with writer and broadcaster Ola Majekodunmi, highlighting multilingual and cross-cultural voices working through Irish.
This programme forms part of the Irish Writers Centre’s 35th anniversary year and reflects its continuing commitment to supporting writers across the island working in Irish, while also welcoming new and diverse audiences into Irish-language literature.
*
The Royal Irish Academy (RIA) welcomes nominations for the 2026 Michel Déon Prize for non-fiction. The prize, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, will reward the best work of non-fiction in the English or Irish language by a single author, published between April 9th, 2024 and March 31st, 2026, inclusive. Eligible categories include: autobiography, biography, cultural studies, history, literary studies, philosophy and travel. For further information visit the RIA website.
*
Faber is to publish a new novel by Barbara Kingsolver, the only double Women’s Prize winner, on October 8th, her follow-up to the phenomenally successful Demon Copperhead.
In Partita, we meet another rural Appalachian, Livia Bohusz, unmoored in childhood by her brother’s tragic death and parents’ stifling silence, finding her only comfort in a consuming love of music. Livia’s exceptional skill as a pianist takes her from the family farm, via a college music scholarship, into a new world of thrilling knowledge, risky passions and confounding class barriers. Both a coming-of-age story and an examination of midlife hopes and regrets, the novel is structured as a composition as complex as the pieces Livia plays.
*
The Whole Wild World North tour, curated by Children’s Laureate/Laureate na nÓg Patricia Forde, will bring celebrated children’s writers and illustrators to schools, libraries, bookshops and cultural venues across Northern Ireland from February 23rd to 27th.
Forde said: “Northern Ireland has an enormous wealth of artistic talent, and I wanted to celebrate this, and bring unique experiences to children and young people along the way, introducing them to some of the most brilliant and creative artists from their doorstep and from across the island too.”
The full schedule can be found at childrenslaureate.ie/whole-wild-world-north/
*
The Ireland Chair of Poetry is delighted to announce the Spring Series for 2026 by the new Ireland Professor of Poetry, Vona Groarke. Groarke has just begun her three-year tenure (2025–2028) in residence at Trinity College Dublin for the spring semester.
As part of the series, Groarke will deliver a public lecture entitled A Lonely Began: The Poem Alone and the Poem in Company in the Edmund Burke Theatre, Arts Building, Trinity College Dublin, on Thursday, February 26th, at 7.30pm. Advance booking is essential; please reserve your place via the link here.
The lecture will be repeated in the Great Hall, Queen’s University Belfast, on Friday, March 20th, at 7pm. Tickets for it will be available shortly.
On April 9th, Groarke will give a public reading at the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI), St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, from across her distinguished body of work, drawing on her 15 books, from Shale (1994) to Infinity Pool (2025).
All events are free of charge, but seating is limited and pre-booking is essential.
*
Literature Ireland, in association with the Belgrade Irish Festival, has announced that Ben Keatinge will be the 2026 Irish Writer-in-Residence in Belgrade. Ben will spend five weeks in the Serbian capital developing a sequence of poems inspired by the life and research of Serbian-American engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla.
Sinéad Mac Aodha, director of Literature Ireland, said: “We are delighted to offer this special residency to Ben Keatinge, a poet who already has a creative connection with the Balkans. We wish him and his host, festival director Jas Kaminski, an inspiring and fruitful experience.”
From 2007 to 2016, Keatinge taught English literature at the University of North Macedonia and since then much of his creative work has centred on the history and geography of the region. During his residency, he will be given a unique opportunity to immerse himself in the rich cultural offerings of Serbia, and participate in the vibrant community attached to the annual Belgrade Irish Festival.
*
An Post and Children’s Books Ireland are collaborating for World Book Day on Thursday, March 5th.
An Post is donating and delivering more than 40,000 books to children who need them most across hospitals, care settings and direct provision centres nationwide.
Additionally, all primary and post-primary schools across the Republic of Ireland will also receive book tokens. Each child can redeem a token for one of 15 specially selected titles suitable for a range of ages and reading abilities. This year’s selection also includes an Irish-language title as well as books available in Braille, large print and audio formats.
The World Book Day selection features books by Irish authors and illustrators, including Pablo and Splash: The Castle Quest by Sheena Dempsey; Rita agus an tEachtrán by Máire Zepf, illustrated by Andrew Whitson; Millie McCarthy and the St Patrick’s Day Pandemonium by Leona Forde, illustrated by Karen Harte; The Doomsday Club: Shape-Shifters by Kevin Moran; and The Big Bang by Rose Ayling-Ellis, in collaboration with Katie Blackburn, illustrated by Paddy Donnelly.
Participating booksellers include Eason, Tesco, Waterstones and a number of independent bookshops. Tokens are valid until March 15th.
*
When Malcolm Sinclair opens the first Samuel Beckett Biennale this March, he’ll be joined by a 30-years-younger audio version of himself. De-ageing technology will manipulate Sinclair’s voice for a new presentation of Krapp’s Last Tape, in which the 69-year-old title character interacts with a recording of his 39-year-old self. It’ll be staged at the Whale Theatre at Greystones on the spring equinox, when the younger Krapp recorded his tapes. whaletheatre.ie
Also in March, Derry hosts the first Ulster-Scots translation of Beckett’s masterpiece Waiting for Godot, in two consecutive days of “open rehearsals” and performances at the Playhouse and Ulster University. The production marks the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence, three of whose signatories were Ulster Scots immigrants.
The cross-Border pan-island Samuel Beckett Biennale will travel to the places of Beckett’s life, as organisers Seán Doran and Liam Browne of Arts Over Borders commission experimental productions to honour one of theatre’s greatest innovators.
On his 69th birthday, at the final event in Dublin in 2038, Richard Dormer will star as Krapp. In 2006 and 2008, Doran invited the then 39-year-old actors, Dormer and Samuel West, to record the younger Krapp dialogues. The recordings were filed away at the BBC. As a result, for the first time in theatrical history, Krapp’s Last Tape will feature actors performing live with their genuine 39-year-old selves – Samuel West in 2036 and Richard Dormer in 2038 – ensuring that the Biennale is bookended by Krapp.
*
Listowel Writers’ Week has announced an increase in the awards for the Pigott Poetry Prize, beginning with the 2026 competition. The winner will receive €20,000, with €2,000 awarded to the other two shortlisted poets.
The announcement comes as Writers’ Week celebrates its 55th birthday – more than half a century of championing Irish literature, nurturing emerging voices and welcoming some of the world’s most celebrated writers to Listowel.
Now in its 13th year, the Pigott Poetry Prize has become Ireland’s largest poetry award for new books of poetry by living Irish poets. Over the past 12 years, the prize has honoured many of Ireland’s acclaimed poets, including Paul Muldoon, Martina Evans, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Tom French, Paula Meehan and Eamon Grennan.
*
Spit by David Brennan has been longlisted for the Queen Mary Small Press Prize for Fiction (formerly the Republic of Consciousness Prize).
*
New Island has signed Clare Murphy, a rising star of Irish storytelling, for her first book, The Spanking Goddess and Other Discarded Tales. Aoife K Walsh, editorial director, and Des Doyle, publicity manager, acquired world rights from agent Abi Fellows at the DHH Literary Agency. Publication is planned for spring 2027.
Clare Murphy’s 2025 sold-out live show will come to the page in a collection of untold myths from the ancient Celtic canon, bringing the wild women who never made the cut back into the light. A shape-shifter spanks her opponents, a queen balances on the point of a spear, a goddess is caught in a face-off with death, heroes are defeated by mother-daughter warriors and we witness the first divorce ... and the woman wins. These are not your regular myths so expect wicked tales of badass deities, feral fighters, unorthodox sex, hairy bodies and goddess-on-goddess battles.
*
Award-winning Galway-based publisher Tribes Press anticipates International Mother Language Day on February 21st with wide-ranging translations of its catalogue. Tribes Press has championed diversity since its founding in 2018, with the bustling and multicultural identity of its native Galway influencing its ethos. Owner Marguerite Tonery said, “I grew up listening to voices from all parts of the world as I walked down Shop Street in Galway, and it has become part of our identity as a city. This influenced me setting up the first multilingual book publisher in Ireland.”
Tribes Press has just released a new Italian edition of the psychological self-help memoir If You Knew Me Would You Love Me? French and German editions are forthcoming. It’s the latest in a long series of translated works by the publisher, including Covid Monster’s Visit, which is available in Irish, French, German, Estonian, Italian, Spanish and Chinese.
