Books

Doireann Ní Ghríofa wins James Tait Black Prize; Sinéad Gleeson anthology on music

Edith Eger book offer; Saturday’s pages previewed – an exclusive Sally Rooney extract

Doireann Ní Ghríofa, left, and Shola von Reinhold have won the 2021 James Tait Black Prize

Martin Doyle's face
Martin Doyle
Thu Aug 26 2021 - 10:00

This weekend’s Irish Times Eason book offer is The Gift by Edith Eger, which you can buy with your paper at any branch for €4.99, a saving of €5.

Saturday’s pages feature an exclusive extract from Sally Rooney’s new novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, and an essay by Frank Shovlin, editor of The Letters of John McGahern, on a key year in the author’s career related through his correspondence.

Reviews are Eunan O’Halpin on Between Two Hells: The Irish Civil War by Diarmaid Ferriter; Sarah Gilmartin on The Women of Troy by Pat Barker; Vic Duggan on How to Stop Fascism by Paul Mason; Carol Ballantine on Unsettled by Rosaleen McDonagh; Gemma Tipton on The Gazetteer of Irish Stained Glass, edited and updated by David Caron; Emma Flynn on Snow Country by Sebastian Faulks; Sarah Moss on Iron Annie by Luke Cassidy; Joe Humphreys on Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use it by Oliver Burkeman; and Martina Evans on new poetry collections by June Jordan, James Harpur, Stephen Sexton and Emily Cooper.

Doireann Ní Ghríofa has won the 2021 James Tait Black Prize for biography for A Ghost in the Throat, the Cork-based poet’s prose debut which is part memoir and part exploration of the life of 18th-century poet Eibhlin Dubh Ni Chonaill. Shola von Reinhold won the novel prize for her debut, Lote. They are the latest to win the UK’s longest-running literary awards, given annually by the University of Edinburgh.

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Their £10,000 prizes were announced by author and broadcaster Sally Magnusson at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Biography judge Dr Simon Cooke called A Ghost in the Throat, which was published by Tramp Press and has already won Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, “a work of great and searching depth and generosity, as involving as it is luminous, that weaves poetry, memoir, biography and translation into a powerful celebration of female texts, and a profound exploration of the way the voice and life of one poet echoes in the life and voice of another”.

Ní Ghríofa said: “It’s such a deep joy to be awarded this prize. In truth, I can barely believe it. From the very beginning, as I set out in pursuit of a ghost, this book often surprised me, and it continues to do so. I’m very grateful to the judges, to my agent Alba Ziegler-Bailey, and to the wonderful Tramp Press.”

Lote author von Reinhold’s winning fiction follows the narrator Mathilda’s fixation with the forgotten black Scottish modernist poet Hermia Druitt, a bohemian socialite of the 1920s.

Fiction judge Dr Benjamin Bateman called Lote “an imaginative tour de force that combines a gripping detective plot with a thoughtful meditation on the historical neglect of black, queer and women artists”.

Von Reinhold said: “Not to be too dramatique, but my head is still spinning too much to make any kind of concise statement.

“Right now, I can’t stop thinking of Hermia Druitt, who was alive a century ago when this prize was conceived, encountering many of the modernist winners and shortlistees but herself a black, Afro-Scottish writer, unlikely to have been shortlisted for any such thing – so there’s a strange joint sense of poetic mourning and justice for her and what she represents in the book.

“I am, of course, also delighted and deeply thankful to the student and faculty judges for choosing it.”

Sinéad Gleeson’s new anthology, co-edited with Kim Gordon, is to be published next April by White Rabbit. This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music is a collection by award-winning female creators writing about the female artists that matter to them and their own personal experiences.

Published to challenge the historic narrative of music and music writing being written by men, for men, This Woman’s Work seeks to challenge the male dominance and sexism that have been hard-coded in the canons of music, literature, and film and has forced women to fight pigeon-holing or being side-lined by carving out their own space.

Contributors will include Anne Enright on Laurie Anderson; Megan Jasper on her ground-breaking work with Sub Pop; Margo Jefferson on Bud Powell and Ella Fitzgerald; and Fatima Bhutto on music and dictatorship. Others taking part are Jenn Pelly, Rachel Kushner, Juliana Huxtable, Leslie Jamison, Liz Pelly, Maggie Nelson, Ottessa Moshfegh, Simone White, Yiyun Li and Zakia Sewell.

Gordon said: ‘“What’s it like to be a girl in a band?” The often-repeated question throughout my career as a musician made me feel disrupted, a freak or that we are all the same. I once asked my boyfriend what it was like to have a penis? To me they are sort of equivalent questions. If it was born out of pure curiosity it’s understandable. Hopefully this book begins an unravelling of the myth that if you’re a female musician you are a ready-made, easily digestible. I loved working with Sinéad on this book – she is a true inspiration!”

Gleeson said: “Music has been a massive part of my life, from fan to music journalist and writer, I’ve always been aware that male narratives have dominated this industry; valorised and prioritised above many ground-breaking female practitioners. Women (like Kim) had to carve out their own space within it, and we wanted to create a book that asked women to tell us about the female artists, movements and pioneers that matter to them. It’s been honour to find these stories, and to work alongside Kim – who I first saw play in Dublin with Sonic Youth when I was 16.”

Lee Brackstone, publisher at White Rabbit, said: “Kim Gordon and Sinéad Gleeson are two inspirational figures in their respective fields and a classic A Team to deliver a book which explores the female experience in music, as a practitioner, an insider, an observer, a critic, a fan and so much more. This Woman’s Work is a wonderfully eclectic and illuminating collection of perspectives and experiences on music, as seen exclusively by women – who have been historically marginalised in the blokey world of music writing (says the bloke).”