Colum McCann, Roddy Doyle, and Maggie O’Farrell are among the finalists for the second annual Dalkey Literary Awards, the Irish Times reports.
McCann made the shortlist for the $24,000 novel of the year award for Apeirogon, which was previously longlisted for the Booker Prize. Doyle was named a finalist for Love, as was O’Farrell for Hamnet, which won the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Also making the novel of the year shortlist were Anne Enright for Actress, Donal Ryan for Strange Flowers, and Hilary Fannin for The Weight of Love.
Naoise Dolan was named a finalist for the $12,000 emerging writer prize for Exciting Times, along with 17-year-old Dara McAnulty for his Diary of a Young Naturalist. Also making that shortlist were Caoilinn Hughes for The Wild Laughter, Elaine Feeney for As You Were, Patrick Freyne for OK Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea, and Seán Hewitt for Tongues of Fire.
The Dalkey Literary Awards, established last year, are given to writers who live in, or were born in, Ireland. The 2020 novel of the year prize went to Christine Dwyer Hickey for The Narrow Land, while Sinéad Gleeson won the Emerging Writer award for Constellations.
The winners of this year’s awards will be announced at the virtual Dalkey Book Festival in June.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
