Loose leaves

The scribe who wouldn’t come in from the cold

The list of finalists for the £60,000 (€68,000) Man Booker International Prize, announced on Wednesday, got off to a lively start when John le Carré asked for his name to be withdrawn. “I am enormously flattered to be named as a finalist of the 2011 Man Booker International Prize. However, I do not compete for literary prizes,” said the veteran thriller writer.

To which Rick Gekoski, chairman of the judges, replied: “John le Carré’s name will, of course, remain on the list. We are disappointed that he wants to withdraw from further consideration because we are great admirers of his work.”

The other 12 writers on the list are Wang Anyi (China), Juan Goytisolo (Spain), James Kelman (UK), Amin Maalouf (Lebanon), David Malouf (Australia), Dacia Maraini (Italy), Rohinton Mistry (India/Canada), Philip Pullman (UK), Marilynne Robinson (US), Philip Roth (US), Su Tong (China) and Anne Tyler (US).

The prize is given every two years to a living writer who has published fiction either originally in English or whose work is available in English translation. Alice Munro won in 2009. This year’s winner will be announced on May 18th at the Sydney Writers’ Festival.

Poetry Now to move to next year’s Mountains

The fate of the Dún Laoghaire- Rathdown Poetry Now international festival became clear at the close of last weekend’s event, when it was announced that, from 2012, it will become part of the Mountains to the Sea literary festival, which takes place in the area in September.

A curator will be appointed later this year for this new autumn poetry strand. After four years as DLR Poetry Now’s curator, Belinda McKeon bowed out last weekend, taking the opportunity to salute her predecessors, John McAuliffe, Conor O’Callaghan and Patrick Galvin, for building the event’s international reputation.

“On a personal note I do want to say that of course I would wish to be handing to my successor the festival in its full and thriving form, a form that has taken 16 years and the goodwill, generosity, energy and talent of many people to build,” she said. She hoped that the festival’s home, the Pavilion Theatre, “on this weekend next March would not be empty of poetry, would not be silent in that way”.

She had confidence that her successor would do terrific things with the poetry strand in September, but added, “It would also be insincere of me not to express the wish that Ireland’s largest and, if I may be so bold as to say, most-loved festival of poetry will some day rise again as the kind of unique event it has become.”

McKeon's debut novel, Solace, will be published by Picador in August.

One city, one book, one new short-story prize

To celebrate this month's Dublin: One City, One Book festival, which features Joseph O'Connor's novel Ghost Light, there is a short-story competition for unpublished authors. The €100 book-token prize is modest, but more valuable will be the story's publication on dublinonecityonebook.ie and dublincityofliterature.ie.

Entries must be no longer than 1,000 words and must incorporate this quote from Ghost Light: "He was the sort of man who makes you think the movement of foliage might be causing the breeze."

Entries by e-mail should be sent to catherine.duffy@dublincity.ie by Friday.