Circling The Square hits the spot

In The Irish Times this Saturday, Girl on the Train author Paula Hawkins tells Fiona Gartland about her new thriller, The Blue Hour. Josephine Brady was Cavan County Librarian for more than two decades until a cancer diagnosis ended her career. She writes about her new book, The Breath of Consolation: Finding Solace in Cancer Literature. Anthea Rowan writes about her mother’s dementia, subject of her memoir A Silent Tsunami. Sara Lodge reveals the unlikely story of Ireland’s 19th-century women investigators, subject of her book, The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective. Shahnaz Habib, author of Airplane Mode: Travels in the Ruins of Tourism, considers the contradictions of modern tourism. And there is a Q&A with Ian Rankin about his career and latest Rebus thriller, Midnight and Blue.
Reviews are Paul Howard on Obsessed: The Autobiography by Johnny Sexton; Michael Cronin on The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden; Ruby Eastwood on The American No by Rupert Everett; Rónán Hesson on the best new fiction in translation; Conor Brady on Only a Soldier Knows by Ray Lane; Kieran McConaghy on Murder By Mail: A Global History of The Letter Bomb by Mitchel P Roth and Mahmut Cengiz; Éilís Ní Dhuibhne on My Roman Year by Andre Aciman; John Boyne on The Unfinished Harauld Hughes by Richard Ayoade; Paul D’Alton on The Breath of Consolation by Josephine Brady; Mei Chin on Entitlement by Rumaan Alam; Nicholas Allen on The Turning Tide: A Biography of the Irish Sea by Jon Gower; Brian Maye on 1588: The Spanish Armada and the 24 Ships Lost on Ireland’s Shores by Michael B Barry; and Declan Burke on the best new scifi and fantasy fiction.
This weekend’s Irish Times Eason offer is Geneva by Richard Armitage, just €5.99, a €6 saving.
In just its third year, Circling The Square has already emerged as one of the country’s most significant poetry events. Established in 2022 to mark the tenth anniversary of the death of Thurles-born poet and critic Dennis O’Driscoll, the festival acknowledges his legacy as the author of nine collections of poetry, two essay collections and the invaluable book-length interview with Seamus Heaney, Stepping Stones. It also seeks to reflect the ongoing vitality of poetry in Ireland by including both poets who were Dennis’ contemporaries along with those too young to have known him.
On October 18th to 20th, at The Source Arts Centre in Thurles, Co Tipperary, some of the finest poets in the country will gather to read their work. This year’s line-up includes: Thomas McCarthy, Rita Ann Higgins, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Louis De Paor, Mark Roper, Anne Tannam, Thomas Lynch, Molly Twomey, Victoria Kennefick, Jackie Lynam, Aidan Mathews, Victoria Melkovska, Eithne Lannon, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe and Iggy McGovern.
This exceptional gathering of poets will present a diverse range of styles and themes in their poetry, offering a comprehensive exploration of the art form. The state of contemporary poetry will be examined in a discussion moderated by Irish Times reviewer Declan O’Driscoll. The discussion, titled Finding The Words: What is poetry now?, will provide in-depth insights from four esteemed poets: Thomas Lynch, known for his introspective and evocative verse; Molly Twomey, celebrated for her poignant, candid poetry; Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, recognised for her innovative and sensuous work; and Louis de Paor, renowned for his lyrical and culturally resonant compositions in Irish.
On Saturday 19th, there will be a workshop hosted by Poetry Ireland poet-in-residence Anne Tannam and, on Sunday 20th, an open-mic event in which poets, emerging or established, can introduce their work to a receptive audience.
Between the readings, there will also be music covering a wide range of genres including classical, jazz, folk, and traditional music. Among those performing will be Gina Oberoi-Engela, Hugh Buckley, Ashraf Taghiyev and Anna Stepanova.
A complete listing of the weekend’s events along with booking details can be found here.
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The winners of the 2024 Forward Prizes for Poetry were announced this evening by host Joelle Taylor, chair of judges and BBC 6 Music’s Craig Charles, and poet Kayo Chingonyi.
·Victoria Chang won the £10,000 Forward Prize for Best Collection for with my back to the world (Corsair). Marjorie Lotfi won the £5,000 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection for The Wrong Person to Ask (Bloodaxe Books). Cindy Juyoung Ok won the £1,000 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Written for Ward of One, originally published in Poetry London. Leyla Josephine won the £1,000 Jerwood Prize for Best Single Poem – Performed for Dear John Berger.
Judge Jane Clarke, the Irish poet, said that the four winners “demonstrate that poetry is more vital than ever,” and represent the diverse excellence of contemporary poetry and all its boundary-pushing innovations. “Whether deeply serious or playful, formally inventive or traditionally lyrical, these collections and single poems share an ability to enrich our lives, helping us understand ourselves, each other and the world around us in all its wonder, tragedy and grace.”
Three of the four winners were born in the United States, with Victoria Chang hailing from Detroit, Cindy Juyoung Ok from California, and Marjorie Lotfi being born in New Orleans. Leyla Josephine hails from Glasgow. Lotfi is now based in Edinburgh.
Chair of Judges Craig Charles said: “We judges read such an incredible selection of work across the last six months, and it took five hours and a mountain of emails just to decide on the shortlists. It was a challenge to winnow down further to a single winner in each category – all the shortlisted collections and poems spoke to us in multiple ways. Collectively, the winners, the shortlists and all the commended poems are a tribute to how vibrant poetry is today.”
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Rachel Clarke, Richard Flanagan, Annie Jacobsen, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Sue Prideaux and David Van Reybrouck have been shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2024. The shortlist was announced this evening by 2024 prize judge, Peter Hoskin, at Cheltenham Literature Festival.
The prize recognises and rewards the best of nonfiction and is open to authors of any nationality. The winning author will receive £50,000, with the other shortlisted authors each receiving £5,000, bringing the total prize value to £75,000.
The shortlist was chosen by this year’s judging panel: Isabel Hilton (chair); Heather Brooke; Alison Flood; Peter Hoskin; Tomiwa Owolade; and Chitra Ramaswamy. Their selection was made from 349 books published between November 2023 and tOctober 2024.
The shortlisted titles are: The Story of a Heart by Rachel Clarke; Question 7 by Richard Flanagan; Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen; A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial by Viet Thanh Nguyen; Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux; and Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World by David Van Reybrouck, translated by David Colmer and David McKay.
Hilton said: “The six shortlisted books showcase a breathtaking range of subjects and styles, expand our understanding and challenge our perspectives. Each one demonstrates exceptional scholarship and compelling narrative and offers profound insight into some of the most pressing issues of our time. It is a shortlist that we celebrate as a testament to the power of non-fiction to enlighten, engage and inspire us. Choosing a winner will be a daunting task but one that we embrace with enthusiasm.”
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Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been named Writer of Courage 2024. The Writer of Courage is awarded to an author who is active in defence of freedom of expression, often at great risk to their own safety and liberty, and shares the PEN Pinter Prize with the winner. The winner of the PEN Pinter Prize 2024, Arundhati Roy, made the announcement in an address at the British Library this evening, where she was joined by Naomi Klein who delivered an encomium. Abd el-Fattah was selected by Roy as her co-winner, in co-operation with English PEN.
Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian writer, software developer, and activist, is one of the most prominent political prisoners in Egypt and has spent most of the past decade behind bars. He was most recently arrested in 2019 and was sentenced in December 2021 after spending two years in pretrial detention. Despite completing his unjust five-year sentence on September 29th, the Egyptian authorities have refused to release him, failing to account for the time he spent in pretrial detention, in defiance of international legal norms and Egypt’s criminal law.
Roy announced that her share of the prize money will be donated to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.
Roy said: “Why did I choose the jailed writer and blogger Alaa Abd el-Fattah as the Writer of Courage to share the PEN Pinter Prize with? For the same reason that Egyptian authorities have chosen to keep him in prison for two more years instead of releasing him last month. Because his voice is as beautiful as it is dangerous. Because his understanding of what we are facing today is as sharp as a dagger’s edge.”
Lina Attalah, who accepted the Writer of Courage 2024 award on behalf of Abd el-Fattah, said: “For those of us who are engaged in a quest of truth finding, through writing or journalism or other avenues, Alaa’s courage lies somewhere there. It’s, as orated by Bertolt Brecht in an anti-fascist gathering, the courage of recognising the truth when it is hidden, the skill to turn it into something we can fight with, the cunning of finding in whose hands to put it and spread it. In his writing; newspaper articles, social media posts, and prison letters, Alaa was finding the truth in and through language; and he has always been doing it not as a self-serving act of contemplation, but as an invitation to learn, think along and move on with it. In prison, his writing became a fugitive body on incarceration as the ultimate underside of state management. Such were the politics of his writings that are worthy of this recognition.”
Klein said: “Alaa Abd el-Fattah embodies the relentless courage and intellectual depth that Arundhati Roy herself so powerfully represents, making her selection of him as the Writer of Courage profoundly fitting. Despite enduring a series of unjust sentences that robbed him of over a decade of freedom, his liberation continues to be denied. This prize, shared between two vital voices, reminds us of the urgent need to continue to raise our own in a call to ‘Free Alaa’ at long last.”
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Claire Keegan has been awarded Germany’s prestigious Siegfried Lenz Prize 2024, endowed with €50,000, at Hamburg City Hall last Friday.
The jury described 56-year-old Keegan as “one of the great European storytellers.” Her works have been translated into 30 languages and have also been made into films. Based on the book of the same name, the film Small Things Like These starring Cillian Murphy premiered at the Berlinale film festival this year.
The literary prize is awarded every two years to international writers “whose creative work is close to the spirit of Siegfried Lenz,” the German writer who died in 2014 at the age of 88.
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Journalist Tanya Sweeney has signed a six-figure publishing deal with Transworld for her debut novel, Esther is Now Following You, due out in spring 2026.
Finn Cotton, Bantam fiction editorial director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in a two-book deal from Sweeney’s agent Marianne Gunn O’Connor.
Pitched as “Baby Reindeer” but from the stalker’s perspective, Esther is Now Following You is a “funny, suspenseful novel about celebrity fandom and obsession”. All that keeps protagonist Esther going is Ted Levy, a Canadian actor and comedian, and the fan site where Esther and fellow “Tedettes” stalk his every move. Then Esther decides to buy a plane ticket to Canada: “After all, Ted might not know it yet, but they are meant to be together – he just needs a little bit of persuading.”
Cotton said: “Tanya is one of Ireland’s most celebrated journalists, whose unique style of storytelling entertains and delights readers every week. I’m thrilled that she has decided to turn her significant talents to novel-writing. Esther is Now Following You is a hilarious and chilling portrayal of a woman’s spiral into obsession, which subverts expectations at every turn.”
Sweeney said: “I’m so thrilled and honoured to call Transworld the publisher of this book. I am delighted that Esther is eliciting such a strong, positive response in people.”
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The Leaves Festival 2024 brings the best of Irish writing and music to Co Laois this November 6th to 9th, curated by Marina Rafter.
Highlights include an evening of poetry and music featuring Paul Muldoon, fiddler Caoimhín Ó’Raghallaigh and the accordionist Brendan Begley; a reading by Niall Williams from his new novel, The Time of the Child, with songs from Stockton’s Wing’s Mike Hanrahan; Rick O’Shea in conversation with novelists Caoilinn Hughes and Cathy Sweeney; Donal Ryan Donal in conversation with Claire O’Brien; workshops with children’s authors Eve McDonnell and Sinead O’Hart; a masterclass with poet and novelist Mary O’Donnell. Youth by Kevin Curran (Leaves Writer in Residence) is the Leaves Festival One County One Book for Laois. Kevin will be reading in various locations including Portlaoise Prison, Mount Library and Dunamaise Arts Centre. leavesfestival.ie
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Finders: Justice, Faith, and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction (Syracuse University Press) by Anjili Babbar has won Best Mystery-related Nonfiction/Critical at the annual Macavity Awards, named for the “mystery cat” of TS. Eliot (Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats). Each year the members of Mystery Readers International nominate and vote for their favourite mysteries in five categories.
Adrian McKinty, author of The Chain, said: “Babbar’s rigorous, serious, and insightful Finders is the most comprehensive study into the exciting phenomenon of Northern Irish crime fiction. A must-read for literary scholars and the casual fan of the most explosive sub genre of Celtic Noir.”
Thierry Robin of Etudes Irlandaises wrote: “Babbar’s own take on the genre superbly anatomises the “quixotic” dimension of good contemporary crime fiction in general and emerald noir in particular.”
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A dozen bookshops have been longlisted for the An Post Bookshop of the Year at this year’s An Post Irish Book Awards, designed to acknowledge the significant role played by independent bookshops and local branches of bookshop chains. Previous winners include Kennys Bookshop and Art Gallery, Galway in 2021, Bridge Street Books, Wicklow in 2022 and Halfway Up The Stairs, Greystones, Wicklow in 2023.
The longlisted shops are: Bantry Bookshop, Bantry, Co. Cork; Books Upstairs, Dublin 2; Bridge Books Dromore, Co. Down; Hodges Figgis, Dublin 2; Hubb16, New Ross, Wexford; Leaf and Bower, Ballincollig, Co. Cork; Liber, Sligo town; Little Acorns Bookstore, Derry; O’Mahony’s, Limerick; Tales for Tadpoles, Bray, Co. Wicklow; The Company of Books, Ranelagh, Dublin; and The Secret Bookshelf, Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim
The shortlist will be officially announced on October 24th. The winner will be presented with their trophy at the Irish Book Awards event on November 27th along with a prize worth €15,000 from An Post Commerce.
Larry Mac Hale, chairperson of the An Post Irish Book Awards, said: “Bookshops are at the heart of many communities across Ireland and this category was introduced to recognise the important role bookshops play, not only in the books industry but in Ireland’s literary tradition and heritage. They are cultural spaces that really help to foster creativity and a love of reading among children and adults, and we are so proud to be able to support them in this way. It’s wonderful to see such deserving bookshops on the longlist and wish them all the best of luck.”
Dawn Behan, Chair of Bookselling Ireland, says: “Irish bookshops are a vital part of society as they offer a space for discovery and celebration of the written word. Booksellers are at the core of the Irish literary industry, connecting readers with titles they will love and cherish, and it is wonderful to see them getting recognition. I’m pleased to see such a diverse longlist for 2024 and extend my warmest wishes to them all.”