The Jaipur Literature Festival, one of the world’s leading festivals, comes to Ireland next month with JLF Island of Ireland.
Taking place from May 22nd to 31st, the free festival will take place in Ulster University, Belfast; Market Place Theatre and Robinson Library, Armagh; Louth County Library, Dundalk and Trinity College Dublin and St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, marking the first time JLF has been presented as an all-island, multivenue event of this scale.
Bringing together internationally acclaimed writers, historians, journalists, academics, poets, playwrights, performers, public intellectuals and musicians from across the island of Ireland, India, and beyond, the festival will present a programme of conversations, readings, performances and discussions exploring the ideas shaping contemporary life. From history, politics and geopolitics to climate change, identity, migration, language and culture, the programme reflects both global perspectives and local realities.
International speakers will include leading historians, authors and journalists such as William Dalrymple, Jeff Goodell, Shashi Tharoor, Jeet Thayil and Tishani Doshi. They will be joined by some of the most prominent writers and thinkers from the island of Ireland, including Fintan O’Toole, Jan Carson, David McCullagh and Jane Ohlmeyer.
The Belfast programme will engage with climate, crime fiction, partition, history, identity and language, while the Dublin programme will explore questions of history, famine, empire, migration, folklore, politics and cultural memory. Across all locations, the festival will examine shared and intersecting histories, including the legacies of empire and partition, and how these continue to shape societies today.
Supported by the Government of Ireland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, JLF Island of Ireland reflects a shared commitment to cultural exchange, dialogue and the role of storytelling in bringing people together. The festival forms part of a landmark three-year partnership.
Helen McEntee, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, said: “JLF Island of Ireland is a signature cultural initiative. As an all-island festival, it provides a unique platform to engage with the ideas, histories and perspectives that the island of Ireland and the Indian subcontinent have in common. It also signals Ireland’s strong commitment to cultural diplomacy, on this island and internationally, and speaks to the power of literature and the arts to build lasting relationships.”
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In The Irish Times tomorrow, Ben Lerner tells Laura Slattery about his new novel, Transcription. In an extract from her new book Hungry, the bestselling author of Poor Katriona O’Sullivan explores how class shapes how women see their own bodies. Sally Rooney writes about the lessons of the fuel protests. And there is a Q&A with author Rosemary Hennigan.
Reviews are Christopher Kissane on The Story of Us: Independent Ireland and the 1926 Census by Orlaith McBride and John Gibney; John Boyne on Devotions by Lucy Caldwell; Edel Coffey on A Plot to Die for by Ardal O’Hanlon; Sara Baume on the best new fiction in translation; Aengus Woods on The Secrets of Painting: The Hidden Art of the Masterpiece from Prehistory to Today by Lachlan Goudie; Oliver Farry on Caroline Sharples’ The Long Death of Adolf Hitler: An Investigative History; Andrew Lynch on Dirty Dancing by Ellen Coyne; Maija Makela on Famesick by Lena Dunham; Neil Hegarty on Over the Water: Essays on Islands; Paul Clements on local history books; and Peter Murphy on Where the Music Had to Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other – and the World by Jim Windolf.
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The 16th Belfast Book Festival (BBF26) will take place at the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, from June 4th to 11th with tickets now on sale. A wide-ranging programme of poetry, fiction, workshops and discussions features leading literary voices including Jan Carson, Andrea Carter, Lucy Caldwell, Sarah Moss, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Katriona O’Sullivan, Patrick Radden Keefe, Anne Enright, Sara Pascoe, Neil Jordan, Will Storr, Wendy Erskine, Sínead Morrissey and many more.
With a spotlight on Belfast, there’s a special event celebrating the work of Bernard MacLaverty, alongside a collaborative discussion on the city’s contemporary identity through fiction and photography with Wendy Erskine, Phil Harrison and Tolu Ogunware. The festival will also host a screening of Nostalgie, Kathryn Ferguson’s award-winning adaptation of Erskine’s short story, followed by a Q&A.
Themes of gothic and the dystopian can be found – director and writer Neil Jordan will discuss his new sci-fi novel The Library of Traumatic Memory, while Jan Carson presents her dystopian work Few and Far Between and joins Henrietta McKervey to explore McKervey’s gothic novel The Woman in the Water.
Other highlights include Sara Pascoe discussing with her novel Weirdo, Aimee Donnellan examining the cultural impact of Ozempic, Katriona O’Sullivan will reflect on trauma and self-acceptance via her book Hungry and Patrick Radden Keefe will discuss his latest book London Falling.
The festival also tackles timely issues, including censorship and book bans, and explores historical connections between civil rights movements in the US and Northern Ireland through Forrest Issac Jones’s work Good Trouble. Author Lucy Caldwell also leads a panel with fellow writers discussing anthologies and the evergreen lure of Irish short fiction.
The winners of the Mairtín Crawford Awards will be announced and emerging wordsmiths can also attend a series of workshops and industry sessions offering expert advice on pitching and publishing.
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The Ireland Francophonie Ambassadors’ Literary Award 2026 will be presented to Garrett Carr, author of The Boy from the Sea, by Swiss ambassador Jenny Piaget on Tuesday, May 19th, at the Swiss Residence in Ballsbridge, Dublin.
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The Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026 shortlist has been announced: Flashlight by Susan Choi; Dominion by Addie E. Citchens; The Correspondent by Virginia Evans; The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson; Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly; and Heart the Lover by Lily King.
Julia Gillard, Chair of Judges and former prime minister of Australia, said: “We are delighted to present a shortlist that doesn’t shy away from examining life’s challenges, but also brings many moments of joy. As judges, we are first and foremost readers, and these novels intrigued and profoundly moved us. The plot lines kept us turning pages to find out what happens next, the characters found a place in our hearts and the stories stayed with us long after the last sentence. The incredible strength of the longlist challenged and delighted us, as we whittled down 16 books to this exceptional shortlist.”
The judges include Irish author and DJ Annie Macmanus, Mona Arshi, Salma El-Wardany, Cariad Lloyd.
In The Correspondent, Trinity College Dublin alumna Virginia Evans writes a compelling and moving examination of a life through unsent letters: featuring a 73-year-old protagonist confronting the hubris of youth with the wisdom of old age, this is a story about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in real life. Judge Salma El-Wardany said: “The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is an incredibly original story, told entirely in letter format. It’s warm, it’s heartfelt, it’s gorgeous, and it really makes you think about the choices we make and what we live to regret.”
The winners of both the Women’s Prize for Fiction and Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction will be revealed on June 11th.
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The French priest-writer Jean Sulivan (1913-1980), the nom de plume for Joseph Lemarchand, was a very highly regarded writer in France in the 1960s and ’70s. His fiction tends to be located in marginal settings, where Sulivan believed the most intense spiritual life was to be found. An example of this is the priest referred to as Strozzi (whose real name was Auguste Rossi), the main character of the 1966 novel Eternity, My Beloved, who spends the latter years of his life tending to the prostitutes of Pigalle in the type of ministry that Sulivan admired: ‘He (Strozzi) lives what I just write about.’
Eamon Maher’s book, The Prophetic Voice: Jean Sulivan’s Ongoing Relevance for France and Ireland, compares Sulivan to the main figures of the Catholic Novel in France, François Mauriac and Georges Bernanos, as well as Irish priest-writers Canon Sheehan, William King and Tony Flannery, before concluding with chapters on similarities between Sulivan, Colum McCann and John McGahern.
The book will be launched in the Courtyard room of TU Dublin Aungier Street campus, at 6.30pm on Monday, April 27th. The French ambassador to Ireland, Céline Place, will speak before former president Mary McAleese engages the author in a conversation about the genesis of the book and Sulivan, who won numerous awards and whose work was published under the prestigious Gallimard imprint.
The launch is open to the public, but interested parties should RSVP via this link.
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Risings: The Irish Literary Revival and the Making of a Nation, on view at The Grolier Club in New York from April 29 – July 25, 2026, explores the formation of Irish identity through the Irish Literary Revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the parallel political quest for Irish nationhood. Risings features approximately 150 objects, including rare books, manuscripts, letters, theatre pamphlets, political propaganda, and photographs.
Highlights include W.B. Yeats’s 1890 handwritten manuscript of “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”; inscribed copies of plays such as J.M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World (1907) and Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars (1926); a rare 1917 poster of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, recently rediscovered in the New York Public Library’s holdings; and a 1922 government-printed pamphlet of the Constitution of the Free State of Ireland.
An online version of the exhibition can be seen here, and an accompanying catalogue is available for pre-order here.
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Anna Burns, the Booker Prize winning author of Mikman, will be in conversation with Mary Conway, City and County Librarian, at Dungarvan Library on May 28th at 7pm for the fourth Writers at Waterford Libraries event of 2026. While this is a free event, booking is required. Call 058 21141.
Burns was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is the author of three novels, No Bones, Little Constructions, and Milkman, and of the novella, Mostly Hero.
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The 10th edition of the Great Reads Award, in which, uniquely, schoolchildren vote to choose the winners, held its awards ceremony this week at DCU’s St Patrick’s Campus. Publishers, including founding Laureate na nÓg Siobhan Parkinson, librarians and teachers, and pupil voters, and shortlisted authors all attended.
Eilish Fisher (author) and Dermot Flynn (illustrator) won the primary school award for Fia and the Last Snow Deer from Puffin, set in prehistoric Ireland, and the second-level award went to Chris Ricketts for You Don’t See Me, a trans love story.
Senior runner-up was The Story of the Great Irish Famine, written and illustrated by David Rooney, and the junior runner-up is The Doomsday Club by Kevin Moran. Also shortlisted were The Fairy Queen by Chrissy Donoghue Ward, illustrated by Monika Mitkute, Being Autistic (and What That Actually Means) by Niamh Garvey with pictures by Rebecca Burgess, Braids Take a Day by Zainab Boladale, Wintour’s Game by Brían Dungan, and Don’t Trust Fish by Neil Sharpson with art by Dan Santat.
The awards are organised by the School Libraries Group of the Library Association of Ireland, working with the Youth Libraries Group.
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Inspired by 19th-century Japanese artist Hokusai’s celebrated wood block prints of Mount Fuji, Thirty-Six Views of the Sugarloaf, a collaboration between poet Nell Regan and late artist Cathy Henderson offers images of the Wicklow mountain by Henderson, with letterpress prints of Regan’s words by Mary Plunkett.
The exhibition marks both the debut showing of Henderson’s final works and the publication of Regan’s new poetry collection, Thirty-Six Views of the Sugarloaf (Arlen House, 2026). On opening night, May 8th, from 6 to 8pm, the book will be launched by poet Moya Cannon, while art historian and curator Catherine Marshall will launch the exhibition, which runs until May 16th.
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Inspired by an attack on an LGBTQ+ person in Navan in May 2023, shortly after her second poetry collection Lessons in Kindness came out, Dani Gill wanted to do something that would have public impact and that would allow her to talk to younger people about identity and difference. She created a project named after her poem Raise Your Spear.
For the past two years she has made spears around Ireland which will now be installed in public spaces in May and June as exhibition pieces. The spears are 7ft tall and she has built structures to exhibit 150 of them to form an ‘identity maze’ or ‘allyship circle’, and a confrontational piece that comes out of the wall,
It opens at Droichead Arts Centre in Drogheda on May 1st at 7pm and runs until May 23rd. There will be a talk with Joe Caslin the morning after it opens. The Ally Circle will then travel to the Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, from June 6th to 30th.
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The £10,000 Unwin Award, run by the Publishers Association, has been awarded to Hannah Ritchie, author of two works of non-fiction: Not The End of the World (2024) and Clearing the Air (2025).
The literary award, established in 2025, recognises non-fiction writers in the earlier stages of their careers as authors, whose work is considered to have made a significant contribution to the world.
The judges praised Not the End of the World as a well-written and revealing book whose optimistic and data-grounded approach gives readers hope for the future of the planet. They believe it will continue to have a huge impact on readers long after publication, along with her second non-fiction book, Clearing The Air, which is also about climate change.
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Full Set has acquired The Infrastructure of Belonging: How We Unlock Economic Possibility by Masuma Ahuja as the first title in its forthcoming business list. Publisher Blathnaid Healy acquired world rights in all languages directly from the author.
In The Infrastructure of Belonging, Ahuja sets out a hopeful path for change and progress by reimagining infrastructure as belonging, connection and resilience – offering an important and necessary vision for the economy.
Ahuja is a journalist, author and strategist. She shares in a Pulitzer Prize, a Murrow Award and a Webby for her work as a journalist. Ahuja’s first book, Girlhood, published by Algonquin, featured the stories of 30 young women from around the globe. She has a degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from Oxford and her perspective has been shaped by calling five different countries home. She writes Future Possible, a newsletter exploring how we design and fund the infrastructure for a resilient future.
Healy said: “The Infrastructure of Belonging is a much-needed, hopeful antidote that shows us there are ways to rethink the big challenges we face in the world. We’re enormous fans of Masuma’s thinking and writing and are excited to bring her ideas to a wider audience.”
Launched last December, Full Set is an independent publisher of nonfiction based in Ireland founded by Blathnaid Healy (ex-BBC News, CNN and Mashable) and Eoin Purcell (ex-Amazon Publishing, New Island and Mercier Press). fullsetbooks.com
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Maynooth University’s fifth annual Arts and Minds Festival (May 7th−9th) literary strand opens with Mary O’Donnell, the Monaghan-born poet and novelist, offering a Masterclass in Poetry. From midday, author events will be hosted in The Literary Lounge at St Mary’s Church of Ireland, Maynooth. Vona Groarke, Ireland Professor of Poetry, will read and discuss her work.
Fiction is the focus with Edie May Hand – whose debut novel, Dirtpickers, grew out of a MU creative writing master’s – in conversation with journalist Tanya Sweeney, author of the social-media thriller, Esther is Now Following You.
An Lúb Liteartha is where visitors can enjoy an Irish-speaking event in the University’s School of Education with authors Dr Dubhán Ó Longáin – MU Writer-in Residence – and Anna Heussaff, in conversation with Caitlín Nic Íomhair.
Saturday’s literary events close with a reading and discussion from Kevin Barry, the International Dublin Literary Award-winning author of City of Bohane and Night Boat to Tangier. Further details and tickets: mu.ie/artsandmindsfestival
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To mark 20 years of the Irish Book Awards, after a nationwide vote from readers, its organisers have announced the 20 best Irish books of the last 20 years.
They are: Room by Emma Donoghue; Fia and the Last Snow Deer by Eilish Fisher, illustrated by Dermot Flynn; The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne; The Bee Sting by Paul Murray; The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan; Unravelling Oliver by Liz Nugent; Poor by Katriona O’Sullivan; The Importance of Being Aisling by Emer McLysaght & Sarah Breen; Ninety-Nine Words for Rain (and One for Sun) by Manchán Magan, illustrated by Megan Luddy; Normal People by Sally Rooney; Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan; The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry; Country Girl by Edna O’Brien; Asking For It by Louise O’Neill; Holding by Graham Norton; Trespasses by Louise Kennedy; We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole; Girls Who Slay Monsters by Ellen Ryan, illustrated by Shona Shirley Macdonald; A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa; and Atlas of the Irish Revolution by John Crowley, Donal Ó Drisceoil, Mike Murphy & John Borgonovo.
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The inaugural shortlist for The Libraro Prize features six fresh new voices in fiction vying for a £50,000 prize package from Libraro, comprising of a £30,000 prize, £20,000 marketing support, and a book deal with Hachette UK.
Irish writer Mary Minnock, who is based in Dublin, forms part of the shortlist for her deeply moving, intimate portrayal of a divorced mother and father facing the mysterious death of their daughter, while navigating their shared past.
The shortlist includes: a second World War historical novel inspired by a true romance; a modern fable about cancel culture; a moving family drama; a page-turning crime novel; an intriguing sci-fi novel set in the Outer Hebrides, and a gripping fantasy about a world in peril.
The Libraro Prize, launched earlier this year and run in partnership with leading international publisher Hachette UK and book recommendation platform LoveReading, seeks to democratise the publishing process by championing submissions on Libraro’s online platform, with the goal of discovering the next bestselling English-language adult or YA crossover fiction author.
