Sligo based author Alice Lyons has been shortlisted for the Kate O'Brien award at the upcoming Limerick Literary Festival for her novel Oona.
The award-winning poet's first novel gives voice to a female character on her fraught journey into adulthood and charts her evolution as an artist. Her adolescent numbness is thawed through contact with the physical world, the materials of painting and her engagement with Irish community, culture and landscape.
From 1970s East Coast America to rural Ireland amidst the transformative awkwardness of the Celtic Tiger, Oona is a resonant story conveyed in the innovative form of a Lipogram. Aside from the title, the novel is composed without use of the letter 'O', the tone of the book reflects Oona's inner damage and the destruction caused by hiding, omitting and obliterating parts of ourselves