Other news from the world of books
O’Connor award longlist
Booker prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro's short story collection Nocturesand Nigerian writer and Orange Prize winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche' s collection The Thing Around Your Neck– as well as collections by four Irish authors – are on the longlist for this year's €35,000 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award currently being renamed The Cork City – Frank O'Connor Short Story Award.
The longlist consists of all eligible titles entered. In 2007 there were 34; last year there were 38. This year there are 57, a sign of the growing visibility of the prize on the international literary scene. Because of this the organisers say this year’s longlist will be the last presented under the old rules. “Next year we will have to consider a preliminary weeding-out before the publication of a longlist. But it is gratifying to see an explosion in short story publishing: encouraging short story publishing is the main raison d’etre of the award,” says prize administrator Patrick Cotter of the Munster Literature Centre.
The Irish authors up for this year's prize are Michael J Farrell for Life in the Universe(The Stinging Fly Press) reviewed on W11; Robert Graham for The Only Living Boy(Salt Publishing ); Alan McMonagle for Liar, Liar, (Words on the Street) and Philip Ó Ceallaigh for The Pleasant Light of Day,(Penguin Ireland).
There are 18 British authors this year, more than any other country – "not bad for a nation O'Connor claimed couldn't really write short stories," says Cotter. The British entries include, as well as Ishiguro, Jane Feaver for Love Me Tender; James Lasdun for It's Beginning to Hurt; Sean O'Brien's The Silence Roomand Ali Smith's The First Person. This year also has a strong showing by writers from developing countries, with entries from India and Africa. Entries in translation also figure strongly with titles by Catalonian, Estonian, Dutch, German, Icelandic and Macedonian authors. The 15 American collections shortlisted include Mary Gaitskill's Don't Cryand Dennis Cooper's Ugly Man.
Cork City Council funds the award. The three person jury will come up with a shortlist of six in late June with the winner announced on September 20th at the close of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Festival in Cork. The judges are American Lloren A Foster, Pole Milka Jankowska and from Ireland, Vincent McDonnell.
See munsterlit.ie for more.
Keeper of Manuscripts
Can there be a nicer sounding job than Keeper of Manuscripts? That’s the title Gerard Lyne has held since getting the post in the National Library in 2003. It came in the last lap of a career in the library that spanned over thirty-six years and came to a close with a ceremony on Kildare Street on Thursday. A portrait of Lyne (below) by the artist Imelda Healy was presented to the library at the event by Lyne’s cousin, U2 manager Paul McGuinness, who commissioned it.
“Gerry Lyne’s contribution to the National Library has been enormous,” said the library’s director Aongus Ó hAonghusa.
“As keeper of manuscripts and before that as surveyor of manuscripts, he worked tirelessly to identify important manuscript collections that could be acquired by the library and preserved and made available for research purposes. These included historic material hidden in private collections and more recently literary collections or those with a political or social dimension.
“Among the significant acquisitions that Gerry has managed on behalf of the library are the literary papers of writers Roddy Doyle, Paul Durcan and Colm Tóibín, the papers of Senator David Norris, the Irish Queer Archive and the literary archive of the poet John Montague to name just a few,” he said.