Seán Hewitt has been shortlisted for the second time for the £20,000 Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, the world’s largest and most prestigious literary award for young writers, this time for for his debut novel Open, Heaven, an exhilarating story of hidden desire on the cusp of adulthood described by judge Prajwal Parajuly as “a tender exploration of love and desire, heartrending and deeply lyrical”. The winner will be announced on May 14th.
Also shortlisted were: To Rest Our Minds and Bodies by Harriet Armstrong; We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown; Joy is My Middle Name by Sasha Debevec-McKenney; Under the Blue by Suzannah V. Evans; and Borderline Fiction by Derek Owusu.
Irenosen Okojie MBE, chair of judges, said: “This is a marvellous, galvanising shortlist. We’re thrilled by the scope, breadth and depth of these works across forms. These books have profound things to say about the ways we live, what it means to be human and overall are propulsive reads that imbue the writing space with new energies.”
Hewitt was born in 1990. He is the author of two poetry collections, Tongues of Fire and Rapture’s Road, and a memoir, All Down Darkness Wide. He collaborated with the artist Luke Edward Hall on 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World. He has received the Laurel Prize and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and been shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. He lectures at Trinity College Dublin and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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In The Irish Times tomorrow, Tayari Jones tells Laura Slattery about her new novel, Kin. Djamel White talks to Patrick Freyne about his debut novel, All Them Dogs. Rory Carroll writes about Roger Casement, subject of his book, A Rebel and a Traitor: A Fugitive, the Manhunt and the Birth of the IRA. And there is a Q&A with Neil Tully about his debut novel, he Visit.
Reviews are Julian Girdham on A Rebel and a Traitor by Rory Carroll; John Banville on Ghetto: The Jews of Venice by Alexander Lee; Neil Hegarty on The Shortest History of Ireland by James Hawes; Brian Cliff and Elizabeth Mannion on the best new crime fiction; Lucy Sweeney Byrne on Four Night Seas by Niamh Mac Cabe; Julia Kelly on A Far-Flung Life by ML Stedman; Huda Awan on As If by Isabel Waidner; Val Nolan on The Library of Traumatic Memory by Neil Jordan; Seoirse Swanton on Enough Said by Alan Bennett; NJ McGarrigle on Helenio Herrera: Football’s Original Master of the Dark Arts by Richard Fitzpatrick; Claire Coughlan on Rasputin: And the Downfall of the Romanovs by Antony Beevor; and Isabella Jackson on Red Dawn Over China by Frank Dikotter.
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The 2026 Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize has been awarded to Tim Bouverie for Allies At War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler, published by Bodley Head.
The prize, set up in memory of the statesman and author Alfred Duff Cooper, celebrates the best non-fiction published in the United Kingdom.
Allies At War is a fast-paced narrative which captures the tensions, the arguments, the lies and the squabbles that underlay the network of alliances against Hitler. Artemis Cooper, chair of judges, said: “Allies at War is a vast and far-ranging story, told with an energy and a clarity of thought that establishes Tim Bouverie as one of our most brilliant young historians.”
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The European Parliament Liaison Office in Ireland is hosting a series of talks, curated by Catriona Crowe, on the protection of minors online, neutrality and Irish and European poetry in lesser-used languages. The series will conclude with a talk by Fintan O’Toole on Ireland’s place in a changing Europe.
Next Thursday, March 26th, at 6pm at Europe House, 5 Balfe St, Dublin, Annemarie Ni Churreáin, Martín Veiga and Keith Payne will discuss Irish and European poetry in lesser-used languages.
The Irish language is undergoing a significant revival, in part driven by the arts, including poetry. The panel will look at writing in a minority language, working between two languages and translation.
Further information on this and the other talks can be found here.
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Four national libraries across Ireland and the United Kingdom have been awarded €750,000 through the UK-Ireland Cultural Co-operation Programme for Across These Islands: Shared Histories, Shared Futures, a first-of-its-kind partnership to widen access to our national collections, deepen research collaboration, and help people and communities explore the shared histories, languages and cultures of these islands.
The National Library of Ireland, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales and the British Library safeguard the printed and recorded heritage of our nations. By working together, the four institutions will build on their longstanding relationships and create a shared programme that helps people to discover the stories that link us across time and place.
