New Writing

Two UEA alumni have been shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year. Paul Murray (pictured), who graduated from the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2001, is nominated for The Bee Sting; and Anne Enright, who graduated from MA in Creative Writing in 1987, is nominated for The Wren, The Wren. Paul published his first novel An Evening of Long Goodbyes in 2003. This was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Kerry Irish Fiction Award. His second novel Skippy Dies was published in 2009 and was nominated for numerous awards, including the Costa Novel Award, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Writing, and (in the United States) the National Book Critics Circle Award. It was also longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. His third novel The Mark and the Void was published in 2015 and was the co-winner of the 2016 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction. Most recently, The Bee Sting was selected as a finalist of the Kirkus Prize in the fiction category. Anne is the author of eleven previous books, including the winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize, The Gathering. Her most recent novel The Green Road was published by Jonathan Cape in 2015 and won the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Novel of the Year Award as well as being shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award, the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, a British Book Industry Award, and the International Dublin Literary Award. It was also longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. No Authority: Writings from the Irish Laureate of Fiction, a selection of lectures, essays, and short fiction, was written during her tenure as the inaugural Irish fiction laureate between 2015 and 2018 and was published by the University College Dublin Press last year. Actress was previously shortlisted for the Eason Novel of the Year Award at the 2020 An Post Irish Book Awards. The Novel of the Year Award was the foundation stone of the Irish Book Awards. The award is sponsored by Eason and voting is open to the public. The winner will be announced on 22 November.