Five acclaimed Irish novels are on the shortlist for the 2022 Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award
With a shared prize fund of €22,000, The Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award is one of the most prestigious prizes in Irish literature.
This year the five shortlisted titles are: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan; White City by Kevin Power; Bright Burning Things by Lisa Harding; Nora by Nuala O’Connor and The Raptures, by Jan Carson.
Adjudicators Rachel Joyce and Manveen Rana chose from sixty novels submitted, and the final results will be announced at Listowel Writers’ Week, on June 2nd.
OUR REVIEWS AND FEATURES FROM THE SHORTLIST
The Raptures, by Jan Carson (Doubleday)
“Family ties and love, surviving in a constant low-grade war zone, small-town insularity, exclusion and otherness, pre-teen angst—all with the heart of a young girl beating firmly at its core.”
—Susan McKeever on The Raptures, by Jan Carson.
White City, by Kevin Power (Simon and Schuster)
“There’s a register that Power has found here, a narratorial style of delivery through Ben—self-aware, preening, hyper-articulate, desperate and pompous— which is so sure-footed and measured that it sings: character, theme and intent knit so finely they become seamless.”
—Stephen Reid reads White City, by Kevin Power
Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan (Faber)
“…a compelling lesson that whether we live in small, insular communities or in the easy, safe anonymity of big cities we should still look out for each other when the power systems that claim to look after the weakest in society fail us.”
—Laura King reads Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan
Nuala O’Connor on writing Nora (New Island)
“Poor and uneducated people can be magnificent, a fact which some find hard to swallow. These individuals are often magnificent—not because they strive for honours or wealth or large achievements—but just by being quietly and resolutely their own person.”
— Nuala O’Connor on the magnificent Nora Barnacle Joyce
