Loose Leaves/Sadbh: In a major development this week the organisers of one of the world's most prestigious literary awards announced the inauguration of the Man Booker International Prize, which will recognise one writer for his or her achievement in fiction.
Worth £60,000, (€90,000) it will be awarded every two years to a living author. It can be won by a person of any nationality, providing that their work is available in the English language. A shortlist of 15 for this first award will be revealed early next year, the winner to be announced in mid-2005.
This is the organisers' answer to the debate that has raged over eligibility for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, which is only open to British, Commonwealth and Irish writers. Many in the literary world had resisted the idea of wider eligibility on the grounds that if American writers, particularly, were allowed to enter then British writers, specifically, might suffer. Now organisers have opted for a separate international prize, the idea being that the awards will reinforce one another. Prof John Carey is chairman of the inaugural international prize.
[ www.manbookerinternational.com ]
Grand prize for Deane
Poet John F. Deane (pictured below) was this week awarded the Ted McNulty Prize for his poem, 'The Instruments of Art'. The €1,000 award, which is supported by an anonymous donor, commemorates the life of the Irish- American poet, Ted McNulty, whose widow, Sheila O'Hagan, was at the presentation. The prize is given for the best poem by an Irish poet over four issues of Poetry Ireland Review. Previous winners include Tom French and David Butler .
Winning more admirers
It's all prizes this weather. When Gerard Donovan was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction last year for his novel, Schopenhauer's Telescope, he wasn't that surprised.
"It's the type of book that's either going to be loved and admired - or not," he said. Now he has won the €10,000 Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award at Listowel Writers' Week, following such accomplished past winners as William Trevor and John McGahern. Author of three collections of poetry, Donovan, originally from the Galway, has lived in the US since 1989. Schopenhauer's Telescope, which hangs, Beckett-like, on a protracted dialogue between two men, is a rumination on the nature of good and evil, set against a background of war in an unnamed modern state.
Reviewing it in these pages, Derek Hand found it a refreshing change that, in a world so full of post-modern ironic indifference, the author was prepared to have something to say as opposed to being merely content to amuse. Meanwhile, Listowel Writers' Week continues this bank holiday weekend.
Litt crit for newcomers
While many eyes will be on the winner of the €20,000 Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award for a short story, to be announced on Tuesday (see Weekend Review, page 13), there are other beneficiaries of the prize scheme. Eight entrants have been awarded places on a writing workshop at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig with novelist and short story writer Toby Litt.
Three of those going to Annaghmakerrig, Kevin Barry, Linda Dennard and Breda W. Ryan, are shortlisted authors who chose to take up the optional workshop, which starts on June 23rd. The other five are Stephen A. Bailey, Louise East, Paul Lenehan, D.W. Lewis and Tony Watson. Places were offered specifically to entrants who had not yet published a novel or a story collection.
"The competition contained the hope that we'd unearth new talent. The idea of the workshop was then to be able to foster that and help it on its way," says Declan Meade, administrator of the award, organised by the James Joyce Centre in association with The Irish Times and ReJoyce Dublin 2004. Litt is currently reading the eight selected stories, no doubt with a view to dissection in the wilds of Co Monaghan.
Killarney entry impresses
Those behind the Killarney 250 Literary Awards were surprised to get so many entries in their inaugural year in both the short story and poetry categories. The poetry prize of €2,500 went to Merrily Harpur for her poem, 'The Arrangement', while Catherine Ann Cullen and John O'Donnell were shortlisted. The judges were Eileen Sheehan, Gabriel Fitzmaurice and Eugene O'Connell. The short story category had one judge only, Niall MacMonagle, who said the many entries proved that the literary mind of Ireland was alive and well. The €2,500 short story prize went to Martin Malone for his story, 'You See it So Clearly'. Malone, a former soldier, is the author of three novels. Shortlisted authors were Hugo Kelly and Laurence O'Dwyer. The event was sponsored by the Killarney Bookshop.