The Derry writer Seamus Deane is the winner of two Irish Times prizes for fiction. The Irish Times International Fiction Prize and Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Fiction have both been awarded for his novel, Reading In The Dark, by two separate and independent judging panels. Deane's achievement is unprecedented in the history of the prizes. He will receive a total of £12,500 in prize money.
The 1997 Irish Literature Prize for Non-Fiction goes to Declan Kiberd for Inventing Ireland and the prize for poetry to Paul Muldoon for New Selected Poems 1968-1994.
Reading In The Dark, Deane's first novel, had been shortlisted for the International Fiction Prize along with a novel by another Northern Ireland writer, Robert McLiam Wilson's Eureka Street. Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower and Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance completed the fourbook short-list.
McLiam Wilson's novel had also reached the short-list for the Irish Literature Prize for Fiction - the first time that two Irish writers were in contention for both fiction prizes. Cork-born author William Trevor was short-listed for his latest collection of short stories, After Rain.
As well as Paul Muldoon's winning collection, the poetry shortlist included John Montague's Collected Poems and Eavan Boland's Collected Poems.
Kiberd's Inventing Ireland was joined on the non-fiction shortlist by Aisling Ghear, a study in Irish of Irish Jacobite poetry in its cultural and intellectual context, by Professor Breandan O Buachalla and Summer Soldiers, an account of the 1798 United Irishmen rising in the North, by A.T.Q. Stewart.
The three winners of the Irish Literature Prizes each receive £5,000, with Deane also receiving the International Fiction Prize fund of £7,500.
The judges for the International Fiction Prize were: Pulitzer Prizewinning writer and former literary editor of the Los Angeles Times, Jack Miles, who chaired the panel; writer, critic and Chancellor of the New University of Ulster, Rabbi Julia Neuberger; and novelist, short-story writer and scriptwriter Carlo Gebler.
The Irish Literature Prizes panel of judges was chaired by English novelist and critic A.S. Byatt and also included poet Michael Davitt; novelist and playwright Emma Donoghue; UCD lecturer Jerusha McCormack and historian and author Professor John A. Murphy.
To facilitate consideration of Aisling Ghear in the final judging stage, the panel for the non-fiction category of the Irish Literature Prizes was expanded to include two extra Irish language speakers who read all three short-listed books. These were the critic and author Alan Titley and filmmaker Sean O Mordha.
The international prize is for a work of fiction written in English and published in Ireland, the United Kingdom or the United States between August 1st, 1995, and July 31st, 1997.
Work eligible for the Irish Literature Prizes can be in either English or Irish and published in Ireland, the United Kingdom or the United States between August 1st, 1995, and July 31st, 1997. Works of history, biography, autobiography, politics, criticism, travel, current affairs and belles-lettres are among the categories eligible for the non-fiction prize
Former President, Dr Patrick Hillery, will present the authors with their prizes at a ceremony in the RDS, Dublin, on November 20th.
A reading by the winning authors and a number of the short-listed writers will take place in the Irish Film Centre, Dublin, on November 19th. Further details will appear in The Irish Times at a later date.
The winner of the last International Fiction Prize in 1995 was South African writer J.M. Coetzee for his novel The Master Of Petersburgh.
Other previous winners in this category were: Don DeLillo for Libra, in 1989; A.S. Byatt for Possession (1990); Louis Begley for Wartime Lies (1991); Norman Rush for Mating (1992); Annie E. Proulx for The Shipping News (1993).
Shortlisted authors have included John Irving, E.L. Doctorow, Kazuo Ishiguro, John McGahern, William Trevor, Alice Munro, John Updike, Russell Banks, Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, David Malouf, Jane Smiley, Cormac McCarthy, Vikram Seth and Penelope Fitzgerald.
Previous winners of Irish Literature Prizes are: Frank Ronan for his debut novel The Men Who Loved Evelyn Cotton; John McGahern for Amongst Women; Ciaran Carson for Belfast Confetti; Professor J.J. Lee for Ireland 1912-1985; Colm Toibin for his first novel The South; Patrick McCabe for The Butcher Boy; Derek Mahon for his Selected Poems; Brian Keenan for An Evil Cradling; John McKenna for The Fallen And Other Stories; Kathleen Ferguson for The Maid's Tale; Robert Greacan for Collected Poems; and Paddy Devlin for Straight Left in 1995.
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