A plethora of prizes and a new festival A preview of Saturday’s books pages and a round-up of the latest news
about 4 hours ago
This Saturday’s Irish Times Eason offer is the No 1 bestseller, The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. When you buy the paper at any store, you can buy the book for 4.99, a saving of 5 euro. Saturday’s pages feature Darragh Geraghty’s selection of the best new audiobooks for summer; an interview by Alex Clark with Valeria Luiselli, winner of the Dublin Literary Award for Lost Children Archive; an extract from Sinead O’Connor’s new memoir, Rememberings; an interview by Amy O’Connor with Caroline O’Donoghue about her new YA novel; and Declan Kiberd reflects on Bob Dylan at 80, filtered through the latest crop of books about the great man.
Last modified on Wed 19 May 2021 09.40 EDT
The Scottish author Shola von Reinhold has won the Republic of Consciousness prize for small presses for their âdazzlingâ queer debut novel LOTE. But the £20,000 prize money will not go to von Reinhold alone: instead, in a first, it is being split among the 10 publishers on the longlist.
LOTE follows Mathilda, a black woman who becomes fixated by a forgotten black Scottish modernist poet. Released by London independent press Jacaranda as part of founder Valerie Brandesâ initiative to publish 20 black British writers in 2020, it is, said prize judge John Mitchinson, a dazzling novel that makes the reader âstand back and gasp at the wit, beauty and mischief von Reinhold has brocaded into the storyâ.