Enright and Banville shortlisted for book awards

BOOKER PRIZE winners Anne Enright, John Banville and Roddy Doyle are among the authors who have been shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards this year.

The shortlists, which were compiled from a ballot of over 300 booksellers and librarians across the country and are spread across nine different categories, were announced yesterday to a room full of writers in Dublin's Fire restaurant.

For Alistair Giles, director of the awards, this year's shortlists represent "a really exciting collection of books," with Enright's The Gathering vying with fellow Booker Prize winner John Banville's Silver Swan - written under the pseudonym Benjamin Black - Ronan Bennett's Zugzwang and Joseph O'Connor's Redemption Falls for the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year.

"I just feel absolutely honoured to have my name on a list with John Banville and Anne Enright," said O'Connor as the shortlist was announced. He welcomed the awards, in part for the opportunity they give writers to emerge from their isolated surroundings. "It gets writers out of the house, gets them relearning their social skills," he joked.

Former GAA president Seán Kelly also made the Energise Sport Irish Sports Book of the Year shortlist for his first book, Rule 42 and All That , which documents the decision to allow the use of Croke Park for non-Gaelic games. "This is absolutely wonderful because it was my first book so I'd no idea how it would be received by the public," said Kelly.

"To be nominated for this prize is the icing on the cake."

For fiction writer Martina Devlin, the inclusion of her latest novel Ship of Dreams on the shortlist for Galaxy Irish Popular Fiction Book of the Year had a particular resonance. "It was a very special book for me. I was trying to give voice to an ancestor, my grandmother's uncle, who died on the Titanic ," she explained.

Paul Howard, who won the popular fiction award in 2007, was shortlisted for two separate books this year, with Ross O'Carroll-Kelly's Guide to South Dublin nominated for the Eason Irish Published Book of the Year award, while This Champagne Mojito is the Last Thing I Own made the popular fiction shortlist.

"As writers, awards are important," he admitted. "We don't have anyone at the end of a working week saying 'you did a good job'. You feel quite isolated and it is a vacuum you operate in. For me, an award is like somebody saying 'that was a good week's work'."

Howard was joined at the event by Irish Times writer Gerry Thornley, whose book Trevor Brennan: Heart and Soul was shortlisted for Irish Sports Book of the Year.

For his take on another legendary Irish figure, Éamon de Valera, historian Diarmaid Ferriter made the shortlist for the Argosy Irish Non-Fiction Book of the Year. "There's something about de Valera that still grabs people's attention," said Ferriter, whose Judging Dev is pitted against Justine Delaney Wilson's controversial book The High Society , Deirdre Purcell's Follow Me Down to Dublin and Stephen Walker's Forgotten Soldiers in this category.

John Boyne, whose novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas won in two categories last year, said the awards can have huge significance for struggling writers. "It helped make me feel part of the Irish literary community," recalled Boyne, whose next book, Mutiny on the Bounty , comes out on May 5th.

Writers Anita Notaro, Derek Landy, Sheila O'Flanagan, Tana French, Niamh Greene, Melissa Hill, Julia Kelly, Mary Kennedy and Brendan O'Brien also attended the event.

The winners will be announced at a gala event in the Round Room at the Mansion House on April 24th. In seven of the nine categories, the winners will be chosen by the Irish Literary Academy, while a public vote will decide who wins the Tubridy Show Listeners' Choice Award and the popular fiction award.

Write stuff: the books that were nominated

The Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year

The Gathering by Anne Enright (Cape)

Zugzwang by Ronan Bennett (Bloomsbury)

Redemption Falls by Joseph O'Connor (Harvill Secker)

The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black (Picador)

The Argosy Irish Non-Fiction Book of the Year

Judging Dev by Diarmaid Ferriter (Royal Irish Academy)

The High Society by Justine Delaney Wilson (Gill & Macmillan)

Forgotten Soldiers by Stephen Walker (Gill & Macmillan)

Follow Me Down to Dublin by Deirdre Purcell (Hodder Headline IR)

Galaxy Irish Popular Fiction Book of the Year (Public Vote)

Secret Diary of a Demented House Wife by Niamh Greene (Penguin Ireland)

Bad Behaviour by Sheila O'Flanagan (Headline)

This Champagne Mojito is the Last Thing I Own by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly (Penguin Ireland)

Ship of Dreams by Martina Devlin (Poolbeg)

The Last to Know by Melissa Hill (Poolbeg)

Take A Look at Me Now by Anita Notaro (Bantam Press)

Energise Sport Irish Sports Book of the Year

Pádraig Harrington's Journey to the Open by Pádraig Harrington (Bantam Press)

Rule 42 And All That by Seán Kelly (Gill & Macmillan)

The Gambler: Oisín McConville's Story by Oisín McConville and Ewan McKenna (Mainstream)

Trevor Brennan: Heart and Soul by Trevor Brennan with Gerry Thornley (Red Rock Press)

International Education Services Irish Newcomer of the Year Award

In the Woods by Tana French (Hodder Headline)

With My Lazy Eye by Julia Kelly (Lilliput)

There Are Little Kingdoms by Kevin Barry (Stinging Fly Press)

Secret Diary of a Demented House Wife by Niamh Greene (Penguin Ireland)

Eason Irish Published Book of the Year

Lines I Love by Mary Kennedy (Merlin)

The Story of Ireland by Brendan O'Brien (O'Brien Press)

Judging Dev by Diarmaid Ferriter (Royal Irish Academy)

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly's Guide to South Dublin by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly (Penguin Ireland)

The Tubridy Show Listeners' Choice Award (Public Vote)

The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black (Picador)

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Vintage)

Judging Dev by Diarmaid Ferriter (Royal Irish Academy)

The Gathering by Anne Enright (Cape)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Picador)

The Ghost by Robert Harris (Hutchinson)

The Dublin Airport Authority Irish Children's Book of the Year

Junior

The Story of Ireland by Brendan O'Brien (O'Brien Press)

Angela and the Baby Jesus by Frank McCourt (Harper Collins Childrens)

The Legend of the Worst Boy in the World by Eoin Colfer (Penguin Ireland)

The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers (Harper Collins)

Senior

The Alchemyst by Michael Scott (Doubleday)

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy (Harper Collins)

Wilderness by Roddy Doyle (Scholastic)

The Thing with Finn by Tom Kelly (Macmillan Childrens)

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times