New Writing from Ireland Literature Ireland Promoting and Translating Irish Writing Fiction | 1 CONTENTS New Writing from Ireland 2 Literature Ireland 4 Fiction 6 Children’s & Young Adult Literature 50 Poetry 69 Non-fiction 80 Index of Authors 86 Index of Titles 88 Index of Publishers 90 2 | New Writing from Ireland NEW WRITING FROM IRELAND 2020 We hope that Literature Ireland’s Talking Translations presents short 2020/2021 edition of New Writing from stories and excerpts from Irish novels Ireland finds all our readers safe and well. read in the original by the author and in new, specially commissioned translations Despite the pandemic, this year’s by a translator. Listen on all major catalogue presents a bumper 80 podcast platforms, or on our website at new titles – just a small snapshot of literatureireland.com. the exceptional wealth of creativity emerging from this island. Another timely development in 2020 has been the launch of Literature Ireland’s Sally Rooney’s Normal People and its online translation grant application phenomenal global success, both as a system. Created using open-source book and a TV series, has drawn renewed software, this system replaces the postal attention to Irish writing worldwide, method of applying for a grant, allowing hopefully opening doors for many other publishers from all around the world excellent young Irish writers of that to submit their applications easily and generation, many of whom are listed in efficiently, wherever they may be working. this catalogue! As for so many others, Literature Ireland’s Books are being published by well- participation at international book fairs is established Irish writers in great not possible at this time. We miss the face- numbers too – our writers are creating to-face catch-ups, the heady exchanges work at the height of their art, playing on books and writers, and hot-off-the with language and ideas in new and press news on the latest trends! And, of exhilarating ways. course, the fairs have always offered key At Literature Ireland, in a response to opportunities for so many Irish books to be the pandemic, we have developed a new acquired, translated and published right podcast series for lovers of Irish writing. across the world. New Writing from IrelandFiction | 3 Despite the current impediments, it is our privilege to continue to promote Irish writing internationally. With the support of our funders, the Arts Council, Culture Ireland and Trinity College Dublin, we are busy helping Irish literature travel, as Irish books continue to be carefully selected, translated and published worldwide by a network of experienced translators and publishers. As we say in Irish: Ná caill do mhisneach! – Let’s not lose heart! Sinéad Mac Aodha Director, Literature Ireland 4 | Literature Ireland LITERATURE IRELAND Literature Ireland is the national agency Literature Ireland: in Ireland for the promotion of Irish • Runs a translation grant programme literature abroad. The organisation works for international publishers* to build an international awareness and appreciation of contemporary Irish • Awards bursaries to literary translators literature, primarily in translation. • Participates at international book fairs A not-for-profit organisation, Literature • Coordinates the Irish national stand at Ireland was established in 1994 and is the London and Frankfurt book fairs funded by Culture Ireland and the Arts • Organises author and translator events Council. To date, it has supported the translation of over 2,000 works of Irish • Facilitates the involvement of Irish literature into 56 languages around authors at select international the world. Together with Trinity College literature festivals Dublin’s School of Languages, Literatures • Publishes an annual catalogue, New and Cultural Studies, Literature Ireland is Writing from Ireland, and other an active partner in the Trinity Centre for promotional materials Literary and Cultural Translation. • Participates in international translation projects • Provides information to publishers, translators, authors, diplomats, journalists and other interested parties. Literature IrelandFiction | 5 *There are three translation grant application rounds per year, with deadlines advertised in advance on literatureireland.com. Literature Ireland has now launched an online translation grant application system to allow publishers from around the world to apply for grants, receive decisions and update successful applications easily and securely online. Details, user guides and links to the system are available at literatureireland.com, together with further information about Literature Ireland and its work. Contact details: Literature Ireland 36 Fenian Street Trinity College Dublin Dublin D02 CH22 Ireland literatureireland.com +353 1 896 4184 [email protected] 6 | Fiction Faber & Faber / October 2020 JOHN BANVILLE SNOW Following the discovery of the corpse of a highly respected parish priest at Ballyglass House – the County Wexford family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family – Detective Inspector St John Strafford is called in from Dublin to investigate. Strafford faces obstruction from all angles, but carries on determinedly in his pursuit of the murderer. However, as the snow continues to fall over this ever-expanding mystery, the people of Ballyglass are equally determined to keep their secrets. 352pp John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of seventeen novels, including The Book of Evidence, The Sea, which won the 2005 Man Booker Prize, and the Quirke series of crime novels under the pen name Benjamin Black. Other major prizes he has won include the Franz Kafka Prize, the Irish PEN Contact for rights negotiations Lizzie Bishop, Rights Director, Faber & Faber, Award for Outstanding Achievement in Bloomsbury House, 74–77 Great Russell Street, Irish Literature and the Prince of Asturias London, WC1B 3DA, UK Award. He lives in Dublin. faber.co.uk / [email protected] +44 20 7927 3800 Canongate / October 2020 Fiction | 7 KEVIN BARRY THAT OLD COUNTRY MUSIC Since his landmark debut collection, There Are Little Kingdoms in 2007, and its award-winning sequel in 2012, Dark Lies the Island, Kevin Barry has been acclaimed as one of the world’s most accomplished and gifted short story writers. Barry’s lyric intensity, the vitality of his comedy and the darkness of his vision recall the work of masters of the genre like Flannery O’Connor and William Trevor, but he has forged a style which is patently his own. In this rapturous third collection, we encounter a ragbag of West of Ireland characters, many on the cusp between love and catastrophe, heartbreak and epiphany, resignation and hope. These stories show an Ireland in a condition of great flux but also as a place where 192 pp older rhythms, and an older magic, somehow persist. Kevin Barry is the author of three novels and two short story collections. His awards include the International Dublin Literary Award and The Goldsmiths Prize. His stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta and elsewhere. He also works as a playwright and screenwriter, and he lives in County Sligo, Ireland. His Contact for rights negotiations Lucy Luck, C&W Agency, Haymarket House, latest novel, Night Boat to Tangier, was 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4SP, UK longlisted for the Booker Prize. cwagency.co.uk / [email protected] +44 20 7393 4200 8 | Fiction Faber & Faber / March 2020 SEBASTIAN BARRY A THOUSAND MOONS The follow-up to the much-loved 2016 Costa Book of the Year, Days Without End, A Thousand Moons is a powerful, moving story of one woman’s determination to write her own future. Winona is a young Lakota orphan adopted by former soldiers Thomas McNulty and John Cole. The fragile harmony of her unlikely family unit, in the aftermath of the Civil War, is soon threatened by a further traumatic event, one which Winona struggles to confront let alone understand. Told in Sebastian Barry’s gorgeous, lyrical prose, A Thousand Moons is a study of one woman’s journey, her determination to write her own future, and the enduring human capacity for love. 272 pp Sebastian Barry’s novels have twice won the Costa Book of the Year award, the Independent Booksellers Award and the Walter Scott Prize. Barry has had two consecutive novels shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, A Long Long Way (2005) and the top ten bestseller The Secret Scripture (2008), and has also won the Kerry Group Contact for rights negotiations Lizzie Bishop, Rights Director, Faber & Faber, Irish Fiction Prize, the Irish Book Awards Bloomsbury House, 74–77 Great Russell Street, Novel of the Year and the James Tait Black London, WC1B 3DA, UK Memorial Prize. He lives in County Wicklow. faber.co.uk / [email protected] +44 20 7927 3800 Lilliput Press / March 2021 Fiction | 9 ESTELLE BIRDY RAVELLING Fast-paced, funny and eye-popping, descending from Trainspotting, White Teeth and Milkman. A group of eighteen and nineteen-year-old men mitch off school in Dublin’s city centre to say goodbye to their homeless friend, Jack, dead by suicide. Deano, Hamza, Oisín, Benit and Karl encounter Jack’s sister and mother, ganglord Wino Nestor, and later Deano’s addict mother. They deal with parties, their Leaving Certificate, race, poverty, violence and Garda harassment, and wonder what it means to be a man through a happy drug-fuelled haze. With scenes from street dealing to park brawls, a brothel and a hospital ward, the group’s fateful interactions at Jack’s funeral set in motion a chain of events that threatens 288 pp their bonds, their safety and the very stability of the world around them. Estelle Birdy, a long-time resident of Dublin’s Liberties, is a recent graduate of UCD’s Masters in Creative Writing. Her reviews and non-fiction have appeared in the Sunday Independent, The Irish Times and others. She has won or been shortlisted in the Dalkey Creates, Penfro Book Festival, Verve Poetry Festival Contact for rights negotiations Marianne Gunn O’Connor Literary Agency and Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair [email protected] competitions.