Books

Lynn Buckle wins Barbellion Prize; Irish authors and bookshops on several prize lists

A preview of Saturday’s pages and a roundup of the latest literary news

Lynn Buckle: Barbellion Prize winner

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Martin Doyle
Thu Feb 17 2022 - 11:57

Reviews in The Irish Times this Saturday are Keith Duggan on Jackpot by Rob Davies and Might Bite by Patrick Foster; Mia Levitin on We Were Young by Niamh Campbell; Seán Hewitt on the best new poetry; Wendy Erskine on How to Gut a Fish by Sheila Armstrong; Carol Ballantine on Any Girl by Mia Döring; Paul Howard on Again, Rachel by Marian Keyes; Liam Bishop on Konstantin Paustovsky’s The Story of a Life; Tom Conaghan on Dance Move by Wendy Erskine; and Sarah Gilmartin on New Animal by Ella Baxter. In the Magazine, Maeve Higgins talks to Una Mullally about her new essay collection,  Tell Everyone on This Train I Love Them. Mia Döring talks to Roisin Ingle about her memoir Any Girl and the sex trade in Ireland.

All Her Fault by Andrea Mara is this weekend’s Irish Times Eason offer. You can buy this popular thriller for €4.99, a saving of €5, when you buy the newspaper at any branch.

The 2021 Barbellion Prize, the international book prize for the furtherance of ill and disabled voices in writing, has been won by What Willow Says by Irish-based author Lynn Buckle, published by Époque Press.

“What Willow Says is undeniably brilliant,” said judge, writer and bookseller Eleanor Franzén, “potentially both disorienting and reorienting to a non-deaf audience, which is really what I think the best writing about all sorts of experience ought to be.”

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What Willow Says is a powerful story of change and acceptance, as a deaf child and her grandmother experiment with the lyrical beauty of sign language through their love of trees, and to a backdrop of myths legends and ancient bogs.

“Reading the entries for the Barbellion Prize made one thing absolutely clear – disability literature has never been more vibrant and searchingly alive as it is now,” saidfellow judge Karl Knights, writer, poet and winner of the 2021 New Poets Prize.

“We are delighted to award the prize to Lynn Buckle’s What Willow Says,” said Jake Goldsmith, founder and Ddirector of the prize. “There was a stellar shortlist this year – it’s a common thing to say, but picking a winner is hard. In future years, when we have the capacity to do so, it is our intention to award all shortlisted authors a prize, with the trophy going to the winner – first among equals.”

Rónán Hession, in his copntribution last December to The Irish Times Books of the Year 2021, wrote: “In a strong year for Irish writing, the standout was the poetic What Willow Says by Lynn Buckle.”

Buckle, a British-born artist and writer, has been resident in Ireland for 30 years, has previously been nominated for the Republic of Consciousness Prize. She receives £1000, along with a copy of WNP Barbellion’s The Journal of a Disappointed Man. Barbellion (Bruce Frederick Cummings 1889–1919), in whose honour the prize is named, was an English diarist and naturalist who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis . He wrote eloquently, controversially, and movingly about his life, health and impending death in The Journal of a Disappointed Man, as well as in his A Last Diary.

Guard Your Heart by Sue Divin (Macmillan Children’s Books) has been longlisted for the 2022 Yoto Carnegie Greenaway Awards, the UK’s longest running and best-loved book awards for children and young people. The author’s day job in community relations and peace building in Derry has informed her first YA novel which addresses the legacy of the Troubles. Wild Child by Dara McAnulty, illustrated by Barry Falls (Macmillan Children’s Books)has made the 2022 Yoto Greenaway Medal longlist. Wild Child begins in Dara’s own back garden and he takes us to hills, woods and ponds, pointing out his own favourite animals, flora and fauna. He explains all elements of the environment that fascinated him at a younger age, and which continue to do so now.

The shortlists will be announced on March 16th and the winners on June 16th at a ceremony at the British Library.

Congratulations to Bridge Books, Dromore, Co Down; Halfway Up the Stairs, Greystones, Co Wicklow, Kennys Bookshop, Galway; Little Acorns Bookstore, Derry; O’Mahony’s, Limerick; and The Company of Books, Dublin, which have all been shortlisted for the island of Ireland’s 2022 Independent Bookshop of the Year Award. The winner will be announced on March 16th and then be entered for the overall prize, which will be announced at the British Book Awards winner ceremony on May 23rd.

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Two titles with a strong Irish interest have made the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses longlist 2022. Turas Press, founded in Dublin in 2017 by Liz McSkeane, has been recognised for the novel In the Dark by Anamaria Crowe Serrano. Epoque Press, Brighton-based but with a strong Irish list, has ben longlisted for The Beast They Turned Away by Ryan Dennis, a novel set in an Irish farmiong community.

The prize is the only one in the UK that pitches novels against collections of short stories, and translated against English-language fiction. Four collections of short stories are up against six novels, and original languages include Indonesian, Arabic, Danish, Catalan and French. Out of more than 100submissions, six new presses were longlisted for the first time. Each longlisted press will receive £500 towards their work producing literature of high merit.

The shortlist will be announced at The States of Independence, a free book festival, hosted by De Montfort University’s Leicester Centre of Writing on March 26th. Each of the shortlisted presses will received £1,500 (£1,000 to press; £500 to writer), and as is now traditional, the winner or winners just get the glory.

The other longlisted presses are: And Other Stories for Somebody Loves You by Mona Arshi; Dar Arab for Five Days Untold by Badr Ahmad, translated by Christiann James; Daunt Books for Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated by Melanie Mauthner; Fitzcarraldo Editions for Dark Neighbourhood by Vanessa Onwuemezi; Fum D’Estampa Press for The Song of Youth by Montserrat Roig, translated by Tiago Miller; Lolli Edition for After The Sun by Jonas Eika, translated by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg; Peninsula Press for Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner ; and Tilted Axis Press for Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu, translated by Tiffany Tsao.

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This year, because of ongoing development work at Avondale, it will not be possible to hold the usual Parnell Summer School in August. It is proposed to have instead an Ivy Day Symposium at the Woodenbridge Hotel, Co Wicklow, on October 7th-8th.. The traditional wreath-laying ceremony at Parnell’s grave to mark Ivy Day will then take place at Glasnevin Cemetery on October 9th.

Ivy Day is the anniversary of the death of Charles Stewart Parnell on May 6th, 1891 and has been celebrated in recent years on a Sunday close to that date. James Joyce set one of his best-known stories in Dubliners in the aftermath of an Ivy Day commemoration.

The theme of the symposium will be “New Beginnings”. This reflects both Ireland’s re-emergence from the pandemic and the centenary of the foundation of the independent Irish state which Parnell and his followers had sought by constitutional means. It also recognises the centenary of the publication of Joyce’s Ulysses, which represented a new departure in Irish cultural history.

The details of the programme will be announced in the coming months. Enquiries about attending t should be made to Muriel Moroney, honorary secretary of the Parnell Society (webparnell@gmail.com).