SIX authors have been included on the shortlist for this year’s Kate O’Brien Award for the best debut novel or short story collection by an Irish female writer.
The winner of the €2,000 prize sponsored by Bill and Denise Whelan will be announced at the Limerick Literary Festival on February 27.
The shortlist is: Dinner Party by Sarah Gilmartin; The End of the World is a Cul De Sac by Louise Kennedy; Mother Mother by Annie Macmanus; The Crooked Tree by Una Mannion; Holding Her Breath by Eimear Ryan; and Boys Don’t Cry by Fiona Scarlett.
Previous winners include Anyush by Martine Madden (2015); Sara Baume with Spill Simmer Falter Wither (2016); Tanya Farrelly with When Black Dogs Sing (2017); Lisa Harding’s Harvesting (2018); Sue Rainsford’s Follow Me to Ground (2019); Show Them a Good Time by Nicole Flattery (2020); and As You Were by Elaine Feeney (2021).
The judges for this year’s competition are Marie Hackett, Eileen O’Connor, Vivienne McKechnie, Donal Ryan, Sarah Moore Fitzgerald and Niall MacMonagle.
