There were lots of winners at the An Post Irish Book Awards in Dublin, there being so many different categories from fiction, non-fiction, popular fiction, crime fiction to newcomer. From a small base of three categories, the awards now include eighteen categories spanning a broad range of literary genres. Thousands of readers vote to select the winners every year.
The Novel of the Year prize for which there were eight worthy contenders on the shortlist, went to the Booker shortlist nominated Paul Murray for his fourth novel, the tragicomedy The Bee Sting. Read a Q & A with the author here.
Set in a town in the Midlands in 2014, at the tail end of the financial crash, the Barnes family has a car dealership – they’ve just about managed to survive until now, but as the novel begins the business is on the brink of going under, and the family may be going down with it. The book navigates a family facing this calamity with irony, panging emotion and existential tones. Described as a masterful tragicomedy of familial chaos and dynamics.
The one book I was championing (reviewed here), the moving, courageous and inspiring Poor by Katriona O’Sullivan, scooped two awards, Biography of the Year and the Listener’s Choice award.
Mark O’Connell won the Non-Fiction Book of the Year with his profound confrontation of true crime, A Thread of Violence a negotiation with the act of writing about murder, and a navigation of the chasm and interplay between fiction and non-fiction, taking the infamous case of Malcolm Macarthur as its subject, while Liz Nugent took the Crime Fiction Book of the Year for Strange Diamond Sally.
Newcomer of the Year went to rising Irish talent Colin Walsh for Kala, a gripping literary thriller, set in a small Irish town suffocating on its own secrets as three friends reunite in their hometown where their friend Kala disappeared fifteen years ago.
In an interesting and informative Q & A interview for the prize, Walsh was asked:
Q: Ireland is such a literary powerhouse, was it supportive of new writers?
The short answer is yes – and not just new writers. Ireland’s a literary powerhouse precisely because we’ve got an Arts Council-supported infrastructure of journals, festivals, indie publishers, etc. That creates a rich writing ecosystem, which is essential to maintaining individual artists and the wider literary culture. Writing is unpredictable magic on the page, but magic always needs concrete structures within which to thrive – that’s what Ireland provides for writers, and that’s why we punch so far above our weight internationally.
The winners of the individual categories will go forward to compete for the title of the overall Irish Book of the Year. The winner is decided by the An Post Irish Book of the Year judging panel. Watch this space!
In 2022 Sally Hayden won that award for her incredible work of nonfiction My Fourth Time, We Drowned.
The nominations for Irish Book of the Year are the six titles shown below:
Word by Word 
What a rich pool to fish in. I’ve read none of these – yet. But I hope this state of affairs won’t last much longer.
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I had read four of the novels on the shortlist, all of which I enjoyed but not this one. To be honest, the sheer length of The Bee Sting put me off, but it does appear from most of the reviews I’ve read to be a compelling read.
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Dying to read O’Sullivan’s “Poor” — thanks for this glimpse into all these very fine books.
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I’ve put it aside for you, will pop it in your letterbox today so you can get started. 🙂 I’m so pleased this book and author are getting noticed!
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I’ve lost count of the number of superb Irish novels I’ve read just over the past 18 months or so – Kala amongst them – and, pleasingly, lots by women.
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I hadn’t really noticed of Kala before yesterday, but I’m intrigued, I do think Colin Walsh may be one to watch, he put aside the opportunity to pursue a fully funded PhD to get writing, a career writer embarking on the roller coaster it seems.
I do tend to read/support the woman writers, but this year I’ve dipped into Sebastian Barry (enjoyed) and Mike McCormack (not so much) and can feel the temptation to try Walsh’s Kala as well.
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A decision which paid off handsomely for him! I was sorry not to see Old God’s Time on the Booker shortlist but haven’t tried the McCormack having given up Solas Bones. I’d recommend Kala, and one that wasn’t listed – Sheila Armstrong’s Falling Animals. I’ll be looking out for Poor.
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Yes, Old God’s Time was excellent and one I was more interested to read than most that made the shortlist, and quite the anti-thesis to McCormack’s Plague of Souls. Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll check out Sheila Armstrong. 🙂
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Been following this award for years and years. It always delivers the goods.
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With Irish writing on such good form and being so well supported, it’s a great place and space to hang out. More exciting to watch the live twitter feed of the Irish Book Awards than some of the other more acclaimed but fatigued awards. 🙂
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Back in the day when I lived in London and had a Twitter account I used to do this!
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Yes, it’s not the same space anymore sadly, but thankfully some small valued aspects of it do remain of you know where to go to find them. They no longer find you.
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I quit Twitter two years ago and deleted my account completely at the start of the year. I just refuse to support the misogynist who owns it 🤷🏻♀️
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I despair of that too, I just find I can’t give up the access to the community I’ve curated for all that it gives. There were some terrible months though of decimation.
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Delighted to see The Bee Sting and A Thread of Violence win last night. Competition was pretty fierce this year.
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So interesting to read this after our chat about Keegan and Moss this morning.
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Yes, it is interesting that support of writer’s and sense of community they have; I recall reading an article at the time Moss published Summerwater about her imminent move to Dublin, I imagine as a writer she too will be benefiting from being in this supportive environment, as well as contributing to it.
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A friend is thinking of choosing The Bee Sting as our next book group read, partly because we’ll have a long gap between our December and Jan/Feb meet-ups due to everyone’s commitments. I’m not sure it’s going to be my kind of book tbh, but we’ll see! (It might win the Booker on Sunday.)
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I’m not sure choosing a 656 page book is a wise choice for any book club, no matter how long between meetings. Perhaps, as an optional extra if anyone is interested, but having a book that long imposed as required reading, would likely make me wish to avoid it even more so! But I can imagine it might be one that you may voluntarily pick up if you needed to escape into an alternative festive holiday family saga than the one going on in the immediate vicinity, if that were the case. I’ve read mixed reviews, but not feeling the allure either tbh. It will be interesting to see who wins on Sunday, with three Paul’s in the running. 🙂
I think I’m going to go for the two WIT winners as my festive splash out, and also keen to try the one Susan recommended above that didn’t make the awards list.
Looking forward to your thoughts on Soldier Sailor.
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